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MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



OF 



Zachariah Chandler, 



(A SENATOR FROM MICHIGAN), 



DELIVERED IN THE 



SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



FORTY-SIXTH CO^TG-RESS, SKCON"r) SESSION, 



JANUAET 28, 1880. 



Off 




.SHIN§3^ ^ 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
18«0. 



JOINT RESOLUTION to print the eulogies delivered in the two houses of Con!?ress 
npon the late Zachariah Chandler. 

Sciolved hy the Senate and Hoitse of Representatines of the United States of 
America in Congress assembled, That twelve thousand copies of the eulogies 
delivered in the two houses of Congress upon the late Zachariah Chan- 
dler be printed, eight thousand for the use of the House of Representa- 
tives and four thousand for the use of the Senate, and the Secretary of the 
Treasury have printed the portrait of Mr. Chandler to accompany the 
same, and for the purpose of defraying the expense of procuring the said 
portrait the sum of five hundred dollars he, and is hereby, appropriated out 
of any money in the Treastiry not otherwise appropriated. 

Approved, February 17, 1880. 



ANNOUNCEMENT 



Death of Zaoiiaeiah Oj 



'EATH OF ZiAOIIAEIAH IjHANDLER, 

A SENATOR FROM MICHIGAN. 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Monday, December 1, 1879. 



Eev. J. J. Bullock, Chaplain of the Senate, offered the fol- 
lowing 

PRATER : 

Almighty and most merciful God, our Heavenly Father, we 
adore Thee as the only true and living God, the creator, the 
preserver, and the supreme ruler of the uuiver.se. We thank 
Thee, O God, for all thy providential blessings to us. They 
are more in number than the stars of heaven and the sands 
of the sea-shore. Especially do we thank Thee for Thy kind 
preservation of us since last we met together in this Chamber, 
and that we are permitted to enter ujion the duties and re- 
sponsibilities of another session of this venerable body, under 
circumstances of great mercy, in the enjoyment of reason, and 
of health and every needed blessing. 

It hath seemed good unto Thee, O God, in Thine inscruta- 
ble providence, to remove by the hand of death from this body 
one of its members. We pray that Thou wouldst bless his 
afflicted famUy. Sustain them in their sore bereavement and 



ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE 



comfort them with the consolations of our most holy religion. 
And may we be deeply impressed, by this solemn event, of 
our own mortality, of the shortness and uncertainty of life, 
and of the importance of being prepared for our departure; 
for we know neither the day nor tlie hour when we shall be 
called beuce. 

And, O God, we invoke Thy blessing to rest upon another 
member of tbis body, whom Thou hast sorely stricken, in re- 
moving by death from his companionship the partner of his 
joys and his sorrows. We invoke Thy blessing to rest upon 
him in his sore affliction. And if there be any other member 
upon whom Thou hast laid Thy afflicting hand, we pray that 
Thou wouldst remember them in great mercy and sanctify 
their afflictions to them. 

We commit ourselves and all that are dear to us to Thy 
guidance and protection. We implore Thy grace, and the 
forgiveness of all our sins. We pray for our rulers, for the 
President and Vice-President, the Senators and Eepresenta- 
tives in Congress, and for all others in authority. Guide their 
counsels and lead them to the adoption of such measures as 
shall redound to Thy glory and to the best interests of our 
common country. Be Thou their guide and support through 
all the trials and changes of life ; be with them in the solemn 
hour of death ; and finally receive us all into Thine everlasting 
kingdom, through the riches of grace in Christ, our Eedeemer. 
Amen. 



Mr. FERRY, ilr. President, the sorrowful duty devolves 
on me of announcing to the Senate of the United States the 
recent and sudden death of ray late colleague, Zachakiah 
Chajmdler, of Michigan, which occurred in the city of Chi- 
cago, on the 1st day of November just passed. 



Ill making this announcement, it is not my purpose now to 
speak of the character and services of one so long and so nota- 
bly a member of this body ; but at some suitable time I will 
invite the Senate to express, by resolution and by eulogy, its 
sense of the irreparable loss the nation sustains in the death 
of so distinguished a citizen. 

Mr. President, as a mark of respect for the memory of a 
Senator present at our last adjournment but absent now for- 
evermore, I move that the Senate do now adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to ; and (at three o'clock and ten 
minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned. 



ADDEESSES 



Death of Zachariah Chandler, 



A SENATOR FROM MICHIGAN. 



DELIVERED IN THE SENATE. 

Wednesday, January -28, 1880. 



The VICE-PRESIDENT. By the unanimous order of the 
Senate this day has been set apart for the delivery of eulogies 
in commemoration of the death of the late Senator from Michi- 
gan, Zachariah Chandlee. 

Mr. FERRY. Mr. President, the time having arrived for 
the delivery of eulogies upon my late colleague, the announce- 
ment in the Senate of his death having already been made, I 
now offer the following resolutions and move their adoption : 

Eesoh-cd, That the Senate receive with profound sorrow the aunonnce- 
rnent of the death of Zachariah Chandler, late a Senator of the United 
States from the State of Michigan, and for nearly nineteen years a member 
of this body. 

Resolved, That to express some estimate held of his eminent services in 
a long public career rendered conspicuous by fearless patriotic devotion, 
the business of the Senate be now suspended, that the associates of the 
departed Senator may pay fitting tribute to his public and private virtues. 

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The question is, will the Senate 
agree to the resolutions 1 
The resolutions were agreed to unanimously. 



Mr. FEERY. I send other resolutions to the desk and ask 
that they be read. 
The resolutions were read, as follows: 

Resolved, That the loss the country sustained in the death of Mr. Chan- 
dler was manifest by exjiressions of public sorrow throughout the laud. 

liesolnd, That as a mark of resiiect for the memory of the dead Senator 
the members of the Seuate will wear crape upon the left arm for thirty days. 

Jlesolved, That the Secretary of the Senate communicate these resolutions 
to the House of Representatives. 

Eesolvcd, That as an additioual mark of respect for the memory of the 
deceased, the Senate do now adjovirn. 

The VICE-PRESroENT. The question is upon agreeing to 
the re.solutions just reported. 



Address of Mr. Ferry, of Michigan. 

Mr. President: The observance of the Senate this day is in 
memory of no common man. The sterling qualities of his man- 
hood none ever dare assail. He wore his faults upon his 
sleeve. Charges of his defamers were frivolous and discred- 
itable to themselves ; for of all the great men who have lived 
and died in this generation, there was no keener seer, no 
shrewder organizer, no franker partisan, no truer patriot than 

ZACHAPaAH CHANDLEE. 

The Chandlers of Bedford, ^STew Hampshire, were well-to-do 
farmers of the Puritan Mayflower stock. There, in 1S13, he 
was born, and there he passed his childhood, receiving what 
was then thought a good primary education. As the boy 
grew up his father gave him his choice, a college training or 
a thousand dollars to stock a business life. He chose the 
latter, and, with the spirit of adventure which has always 
marked the New England race, he made for western wilds. 

Michigan at that time was a trackless wilderness, whose 
solitude lav unbroken save bv the roar of surrounding waters. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLliR. 9 

Detroit then was a towu on the border, with a population of 
some five tliousand souls. There he stuck his stake and be- 
gan his mercantile career. His main object in those days was 
to win commercial success. This he achieved by his self-denial, 
energy, fidelity, sagacity, and integrity. No man worked 
harder, lived more frugally, or upheld a higher standard of 
business morality. Many a night he slept on the floor or 
counter of his store, and many other nights, through the for- 
est roadway, under the light of the stars, he traversed the 
peninsula from point to point, doing business by day and 
])ushing his way by night. For several years he thus had 
been toiling, when the great financial crash of 1837 overtook 
him. Smaller country merchants could not meet their paper. 
Chandler's store in Detroit felt the wave of disaster, and, 
gathering up all available effects, he pushed for New York 
and laid before his creditors the exact situation, proposing to 
make to them an assignment of all he had. Their answer 
was equally creditable to him and to them : " Chandler, 
you are too good a man to be lost for want of confidence ; go 
back and go on with your business, and if you want more 
goods send on your orders." The result showed they had not 
misjudged. In a couple of years he had weathered the storm, 
and paid every debt, dollar for dollar ; and from that hour his 
fortune was assured. 

Meanwhile he became most thoroughly identified with his 
city and State. Generally known as a thorough business man, 
his acquaintance with the business men of Michigan was bet- 
ter than any one of his associate pioneers. His public spirit 
led him into all relations with his fellow-citizens which prom- 
ised to promote the welfare of his adopted home. Then, in his 
earlier vigor, he took part in the various organizations of the 
young men of Detroit, and first became known as a speaker in 



2 



10 ADDRESS OF JIE. FERRY ON THE 

the debating society of the city, attracting special attention by 
a public lecture on the " Elements of Success." At that time 
the whigs and democrats were the contending ijolitical parties, 
and Michigan was controlled by the then powerful democratic 
party, under the distinguished leadership of General Lewis 
Cass, himself a worthy, honored, and influential resident of 
Detroit. Chandlek, as became his New England origin, sided 
with the whigs. His fli-st decidedly political speech was made 
in 1848, at Detroit, one evening, upon a box at a corner of the 
street, in favor of the i)residential candidacy of General Zach- 
ary Taylor. He began that speech by saying in a sprightly 
way that one of the reasons he had for supporting his candi- 
date was that his name was "Old Zach," a name he honored, 
for his name too was "Zach," scarcely dreaming as he said 
it that thirty years afterward, from the platform of a crowded 
hall in a great city west of Detroit, on the eve of his death, he 
himself, as "Old Zach," would be greeted by admiring thou- 
sands of his fellow-citizens, assembled to hear the last and 
ablest speech of his life. 

From the election of General Taylor to the Presidency, 
Chandler took a more active part in the local jjolitics of 
Michigan. In 1851 he was chosen mayor of Detroit, against 
the powerful influence of his political opponents, through his 
personal popularity. The next year he was nominated by the 
whigs for governor of the State, but the time for party change 
had not then come, and he sustained defeat. Undaunted he 
bore the taunts of democratic leaders in those days, who con- 
temptuously smiled upon his political aspirations and jeered 
him with the hint that a mere merchant and business man 
should never aim so high ! ! 

Controversy in national ]5olitics gradually ripened a new 
order of things. The issues forced upon the people by the 



LEPE A^T) CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 11 

repeal of the Missoiui compromise and the consequent scenes 
in Kansas gave birth to a new party, whose history should 
surpass all others since the foundation of the Government. 
Chandler was one of the fathers and founders of that repub- 
lican party, and, notwithstanding his pretensions were so de- 
rided by his political adversaries, he displaced the honored 
democratic champion. General Cass, by taking his seat in the 
Senate of the United States on the 4th of March, 1857. 

In a single week after his election to this high place he had 
retired from an active and large mercantile business, with all 
its affairs definitely arranged, that private matters should not 
divert him from his more responsible duties to the people of 
State and country. When this change of pursuit occurred he 
was in business capacity the peer of Astors, Stewarts, and 
Vanderbilts. The secret of success he had found. His wealth, 
already assured, was so disposed that before his death he was 
accounted with the country's millionaii-es. The energy and 
zeal which had wrought out so large a fortune was now di- 
rected to questions of public interest which for years he had 
seen arising, and had been preparing himself to meet, with a 
faifh as clear as his courage was invincible. Elected to this 
body, he continued a Senator for three consecutive terms, end- 
ing March 4, 1875. At the choice for the fourth term he was 
defeated, when the qualities of the man shone forth as never 
before. Silent and serene he bided his time. He well knew 
that the body of the State was with him, and that he had been 
abandoned by a handful of men who in an hour of fatality were 
incapable of measuring either him or themselves. Knowing it 
was unjust, he felt sure that his own State, for which he had 
labored for years, would on the first occasion right the blun- 
dering wrong. She was early to discover and prompt to cor- 
rect her mistake. Happily, too, that she rejected the example 



12 ADDRESS OP MK. FEKKT ON THE 

of the Greeks, who persecuted their sages and heroes to death, 
theu afterward repented in momiments and tears. The inter- 
val (if loss to the State was gain to the nation. The lapse 
proved auspicious. It was needed to furnish opportunity for 
his commanding business capacity and Spartan virtue to dis- 
play on another field. Ketiring from the Senate did not long 
end his public service. The Department of the Interior, one 
of the most important and complicated branches of the Gov- 
ernment, was suffering under the cloud of evil repute. He 
was invited by President Grant to assume its charge, and, in 
October, 1875, took the oflBce. Those who knew him well at 
once predicted that he would clear that Department of long- 
prevailing scandals, and manage its affairs vigorously, wisely, 
honestly, and for the best interests of the country. How well 
he met this expectation the record of his ofiQcial relation to it 
will best answer. Upon the inauguration of President Hayes, 
Chajjdler was superseded and returned to his home in De- 
troit, ending apparently his official life. For himself he could 
well then, and honorably, withdraw from all active jiarticipa- 
tion in the political struggles of the day ; but the public felt a 
loss which he alone could repair. On the resignation of Sen- 
ator Christiancy, by whom he was defeated, he was replaced in 
the Senate by an overwhelming voice of the Legislature of his 
State, and at once resumed his seat here, which he held to the 
close of the late exti-aordinary session. 

To justly take the measure of this man we must recall the 
times and associates of his labors. Chawdlek first came to 
his senatorial seat at the called session of March, 1857. He 
stood up in this Chamber and took the oath of office with 
Hamlin, of Maiue; Bayard, of Delaware; Bright, of Indiana; 
Broderick, of California; Sumner, of Massachusetts; Preston 
King, of New York; Rusk, of Texas; Cameron, of Pennsyl- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 13 

vania; Dixou, of Connecticut; Wade, of Oliio; Doolittle, of 
Wisconsin; Mallory, of Florida; and Jefferson Davis, of Mis- 
sissippi. That oath was administered by Mason, of Virginia, 
and faithlessly as some came to regard it, Chandler meant 
every word of it, officially lived it, in his last i)ublic words in 
the presence of assembled thousands glowed with it, and died 
with the supreme joy of having through all tests of ambition, 
fortune, and peril obeyed its obligations faithfully to the end. 
On taking his seat and casting about him he saw the veterans 
of the Senate, the venerable fathers and orators of the Re- 
public, and men, too, as he gazed, wlio even then were pre- 
paring for revolt upon the contingency of an ad\'erse pres- 
idential election. Ho saw Breckiuridge, of Kentucky, just 
then sworn into the office of Vice-President of the United 
States and President of the Senate. He saw here then, as 
seen now, a democratic majority and the leading spirits of the 
then policy of that proud party. There were the venerable 
Butler, of South Carolina; Slidell and Benjamin, of Louisiana; 
Toombs, of Georgia; Houston of Texas; Johnson, of Tennes- 
see; and greatest, if last, Douglas, the giant of Illinois. And 
among the master spirits of the policy of the broadest liberty 
as the true construction of the national character, were Sew- 
ard, of New York; Wade, of Ohio; Hajmlin and Fessenden, 
of Maine; Sumner and Wilson, of Massachusetts; Hale, of 
New Hampshire; Crittenden, of Kentucky; Collamar and 
Foot, of Vermont; Broderick, of California; Harlan, of Iowa; 
Cameron, of Pennsylvania; and Trumbull, of Illinois. Many 
of these were lawyers and statesmen of ripe experience in 
these halls, some of whom had sat with Calhoun and Clay and 
Webster and Benton, sharing in the debates of those giants of 
earlier days. • Chandler, fresh from the counter, had many 
things to learn; but he was not long in taking his bearings. 



14 ADDRESS OF MR. FERRY ON THE 

The whole country was then profoundly agitated. President 
Buchanan was surrounded by Cass and Cobb, Jacob Thomp- 
son, Toucey and Floyd, Brown and Black, and Chief-Justice 
Taney. Filibuster Walker was maneuvering in southern 
waters, threatening by his piratical movements to embroil the 
nation in foreign war; the Kansas conflict was raging with in- 
creasing fury, and Abraham Lincoln, then a quiet country law- 
yer in Illinois, was carefully noting the situation and uncon- 
sciously bracing for his herculean labor. Chandler lost no 
opportunity to express concern for manifest disregard for the 
welfare of the North and West. Observing this early, in place- 
ment on committees in the first session of the Thirty-fifth Con- 
gress, when committees were announced, he rose and in earnest 
but dignified remonstrance said, "Sir, we are not satisfied, and 
we desire to enter our protest against any such foimation of 
the committees as is here proposed"; and, on one of his first 
measures — a bill to deepen the Saint Clair Flats — said, " I 
want to see who is friendly to the great Northwest and who 
is not, for we are about making our last prayer here. * * * 
After ISCO we shall not be here as beggars." Upon the ques- 
tions of more general character in the national policy he, with 
becoming reserve, deferred in debate to more experienced mem- 
bers; but when measures were proposed which he could not 
indorse, he was of such a mold that he could not sit by in 
silence. His face was squarely set against the Lecompton 
constitution and the acquisition of Cuba. His speeches on 
those projects are among the most telling protests raised in 
the Senate upon kindred measures. In the fiercer debates 
which followed, the custom of the duello— popular at the 
South, but deprecated at the North — received new life. Me- 
nace and insult had reached their limit. They were no longer 
to be borne. Chandler, Wade, and Cameron signed a com- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 15 



pact to fight on the first provocation. It certainly was a 
bold step, but it was effectual. Chandler and Wade soon 
had occasion to act upon their purpose. Seward's "irre- 
pressible conflict" drew insult, and Chandler took up his 
cause. Sumner was smitten down and Wade repelled the 
dastardly act. Whatsoever may be said of the means em- 
ployed, the code thenceforth practically came to an end. 
Chandler was as ready with words as with blows. When 
the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry was under discussion 
his allusion to the fury which sealed the fate of those whose 
zeal for human liberty knew no bounds, was a most biting 
piece of satire. 

If— 

Said he — 

seventeen men were to attack the city of Detroit in any capacity, and the 
mayor should appoint as a guard more than seventeen constables to take 
care of them, the city auditor would decline to audit the account. He 
would not pay it. 

His foresight was even more remarkable than his fearless, 
patriotic zeal. In the great presidential contest of 1860, when 
four candidates were before the people and the whole land was 
kindled to the highest state of excitement, his belief that on 
the success of Lincoln hinged the life of the nation made him 
most active and conspicuous in the campaign. He may be 
said to have been the triumphant knight of that great tourna- 
ment. When Congress assembled, following this presidential 
race, he, with others, saw the national heavens black with 
portent. He watched with anxiety the days of winter unfold- 
ing signs of national disintegration, and marked the powers of 
national self-preservation scattered, and the Chief Magistrate 
in grave message declaring the Government powerless to pre- 
vent separation. In these and other unmistakable signs he 



16 ' ADDRESS OF MR. FERRY ON THE 



read the deep-seated purpose of destroying the Uuion, and 
when a peace convention of all the States was called to meet 
in Washington he could not restrain or disguise his judgment. 
The cry for "peace" then, and under such indications and 
preparations, was to him a pretext, the outcome of which was 
war. He so penned a private letter to the governor of Michi- 
gan, which, purloined, was made the subject of mock solemnity 
of horror by Powell, of Kentucky, and the occasion for Rich- 
ardson, of Illinois, to taunt him with the authorship of what 
has come to be known as "Chandler's blood-letting letter." 
Chandler's reply to these was a manly, frank utterance, and 
such a scathing arraignment of the scheme of secession and 
rebellion that the loyal si)irit of the country was I'oused, mock 
oratory in the Senate for the time put at rest, and this famous 
letter signalized as the one prophecy of patriotic foresight 
which the muse of history writes down sadly fulfilled. It was 
by him then memorably said that peace conventions would 
prove vain and fruitless. The 4th of March found many seats 
in this Chamber vacated. Subsequent events developed seven 
States of the Union organized at Montgomery into a separate 
government, with Jefferson Davis its president and Alexan- 
der H. Stevens, now a distinguished member of the other 
House, its vice-president. Fort Sumter invested, fired upon, 
and war suddenly opened on a generation that had as little 
practical knowledge of war as belief that arms were to settle 
what votes had legally expressed as the will of loyal people. 
The lack of the art and practice of warfare was, however, more 
than made up by the spirit and enthusiasm for the old flag, 
which knew no bounds. 

Of the few rare men reared and raised into prominent place 
by an all-wise Providence for the matchless struggle, Chan- 
dler was one. He had in large measure the very qualities 



LIFE A?JD CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 17 

to animate and inspirit a brave and willing, but unmartial 
people, loving country above peace and life. Such men were 
needed to quicken and encourage the forces on the field amid 
the reverses which fell to our Army during the first years 
of the war. Congress met in December, 'Gl ; a gi-eat shadow 
lay on the loyal heart; undismayed, and firm and hopeful 
midst disaster, Chandler was the first to move in this body 
a committee on the conduct of the war, which was on the part 
of the Senate composed of Wade, Chandler, and Johnson. 
And well did it perform its great task. Reports from it fill 
seven large volumes of the public records. To give a glimpse 
of the character of its work, and the lamentable national situ- 
ation calculated to appall the bravest, it seems due at this 
time to this stout heart that his own words should voice that 
work and that situation. He said in this Senate, July 16, 
18G2: 

At an early day of the present session of Congress the Committee on the 
Conduct of the War was raised. » * » The committee has been in con- 
stant, ahnost daily, communication with the Administration, and has from 
time to time submitted such information as, in their opinion, should hn fur- 
nished to the Executive. How valuable this information may have been to 
the Administration is not for me or the con mittee to decide, but, in my opin- 
ion, when the history of the war shall have been written the country will 
give credit where credit is due. 

The last one of that valiant trio of this body has gone to 
join his colleagues where just merit is rewarded ; and on this 
occtxsion and in this presence, one voice at least of that coun- 
try shall say that it already gives and will thenceforth " give 
credit where credit is due." As to the situation, he continued : 

The battle of Bull Run seems to have been the culminating point of the 
rebellion. Up to that time the North hardly seemed to appreciate the fact 
that we were in the midst of war ; th.at a gigantic and wicked rebellion 
was shaking the very foundation-stones of our political institutions; that 
the rebels meant a bloody, fratricidal war. The tiring upon Sumter was 
considered rather the action of a frenzied mob than the fixed, determined 



3 C 



IS ADDRESS OF MR. FERRY ON THE 

intent to break up aud destroy the best Government the world had ever seen. 
That battle left the enemies of the country masters of xhe lield and virtually 
besiegers of the capital. From that 21st day of July, 1861, the nations of 
the earth considered the experiment of rejiublican institutions a failure, or 
at least an untried experiment. Rebellion had triumphed, and the nations 
believed the Republic was tottering to ita faU. Our securities became val- 
ueless outside our borders, and our armies to be raised were considered men 
in buckram. Not so the brave and loyal millions of the Xorth. They knew 
that the resources of the North had not been touched, that the battle of 
Bull Run was but an insignificant skirmish, without results to either side, 
and forthwith began to put forth their mighty energies. Up to this time 
the earnestness of this rebellion had not been appreciated by the North. 

Later than this painful recapitulation of our then sorry con- 
dition, and in the second year of the war, our fortunes proved 
no better than the first. Eepeated disaster.s not only thinned 
our ranks aud spread distru.st of success, but made the enemy 
bold and defiant. The hearts of the loyal iieople sank within 
them. A peace party began to develop in their midst. Mc- 
Clellau, the popular idol of the hour, was at the head of the 
finest army the world ever saw. Instead of fighting the enemy 
in the field, ijeninsula malaria was permitted to decimate that 
army, which, later, emerged from the seven days' disaster in 
covering an inglorious defeat. Still an idolized commander, 
no one dared arraign him — notwithstanding the Union cause 
was on the brink of ruin — till on the 1st day of July, 1862, 
Zachariah ChajNtdler pronounced his master speech on the 
conduct of the war, and closed by demanding the removal of 
McClellan. It fell like a thimderboldt, but it cleared the sky. 
From that hour hope, aud new vigor, stirred the masses of 
the North. 

To speak of his labors during the years of the war — how 
watchful, useful, tireless, fearless, hopeful, defiant, and active 
everywhere — would be to reflect upon the memories of our 
country and households for whose sake he battled in this Sen- 
ate and elsewhere ; visited field and camp ; viewed the hospi- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CnANDLER. 19 

tals ; cared for the maimed and dyiug ; cheered and upbore the 
President and his sorely pressed Cabinet, until victory perched 
upon the Union banner. Congressional records will reveal 
the multiplied forms in which his sagacious and practical 
mind shaped the measures which were so vital during the 
years of the war, and which now stand as the policy of the 
Government, and his memorial legacy, bequeathed to a saved 
and grateful nation. 

Of his labors since that period, time will not permit me to 
speak at length. As chairman of the Committee on Commerce 
of the Senate, and of which he was a member at his death, he 
imparted to its varied labors that freshness and vigor of 
thought and breadth of suggestion for which he was ever noted. 
As in war, so in peace, anything which concerned the honor 
of, or advanced American interests never escaped his ready 
attention. Whether at home or abroad, her rights and wel- 
fare were to him of the first importance. To the revenue and 
financial measures which have contributed to restore the nation 
to a condition of prosperity, and have raised our commercial 
credit and standing to the front rank with the powers of the 
globe, he gave the aid of his rare expeiience and ripest judg- 
ment. Occupied with the exhaustive labors that grew out of 
the attempt to destroy the Union by force of arms ; with the 
care, thought, and legislation demanded to provide adequate 
organic guarantees to forever remove the source of national 
division ; to assure to slaves made fr-ee their rightful citizen- 
ship, and utterly extirpate every vestige of electoral disqualifi- 
cation ; to retire to the body of the people an army millions 
strong; to safely reconstruct and restore desolated States; to 
re-establish civil service upon the basis of preference given to 
maimed Union soldiers in Government employ; to provide 
■ways and means to meet the cumulative obligations of the na- 



20 ADDRESS OF ^m. FERRY ON THE 

tiou aud place the money of the people upon n safe and stable 
basis; to prove that under monarchies and not republics ''laws 
are silent in the midst of arms" — since all the functions of 
popular sovereignty went on with uuinterrujjted precision — I 
repeat : with care for all these subjects, Mr. Chandler found 
time and occasion to guard as well against any acts encroach- 
ing upon our rights and just relations with nations abroad, as 
to watch and advance the supremacy of the political party 
charged with the defense and welfare of the nation at home. 
He offered and advocated a resolution for reclamation upon 
Great Britain for the destruction of our shipping by the 
Anglo-Confederate privateers at sea; discussed non-inter- 
course with England ; spoke with indignant fervor upon the 
raids from Canada ; and lu'ged a termination of the reciprocity 
treaty with that Dominion. He as freely denounced European 
despotism on this continent and raised his voice against its 
usiu'pations. He submitted a resolution of inquiry into the 
alleged acts of the Mexican imperial government toward the 
officers and men of the Juarez party, who were rejjorted to 
have suflered death by order of Maximilian. His speech on 
this resolution was the bold denunciation of a soul burning 
with indignation at the intrigues and cruelties by which a 
hated throne had been set up on republican soil, uttered, too, 
at a time when our word was thought in Europe to have lost 
its prestige and power. He said of this imperial intruder : 

If this man, under similar circumstances, had been captured in Austria he 
would have been whipped to death ; France would have put him in a cave 
and smothered him with smoke ; England would have blown him to pieces 
at the muzzle of her guns. I think Mexico made a mistake. He had for- 
feited the right to die a soldier's death. 

jSo one, I believe, ever doubted Chandler's courage to be 
equal to any emergency, public or personal. I can recall but 
one occasion in my long acquaintance with him when he 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 21 

seemed disheartened and borne down by the force of public 
events. It was when Pi-esident Johnson, attempting the re- 
moval of the great War Secretary, Stanton ; quarreling with 
the then famous hero of the war. General Grant, and defying 
the Congress of the United States, escaped impeachment so 
narrowly. Chandler felt that republican government was 
then at stake and impeachment a necessity. Never was there 
a time when he came so nigh despaii-ing of the Eepublic as at 
that event. He, however, as others, happily learned that a 
republic that could survive the tragic loss of its beloved martyr 
President, and live under the misrule of an ignoring accession, 
has beneath its destiny a Divine grasp which gives assurance 
of its sui'vival of all human device or human ill. 

Men die, but the Kepublic lives. This Senate, as well as the 
country, will, however, miss Senator Chandler. Upon many 
and varied topics he shared in debate; direct, forceful, and 
acciu-ate, he spoke with effect. He at times was matched with 
the foremost of his associates and seldom had to retract or 
surrender his propositions. His discussions with the classical 
and accomplished Sumner are striking examples of his accu- 
racy and force in all matters of substantial fact and interest. 

In the session of 1874-'75 he was putting forth his ripest 
powers in support of measures which he thought would tend 
to the general prosperity, relieve commercial depression, and 
bring back better times. 

When his senatorial term expired his exijectation was that 
the State he had honored and served would mark its approval 
by his return to the Senate for another term. Changes, how- 
ever, of a i)artisan character had occasioned the alienation of 
many supporters of the republican party in several of the 
States of the Union. The democratic party had thus gained 
the ascendency in enough of those States to place the House 



22 ADDRESS OF MR. FERRY ON THE 

of Represeutatives iu their liands. Michigan was more or less 
afl'ected, and some of its old fiieuds had turned away from the 
republican party iu that State, as well. The republican ma- 
jority in the Legislature was in a measure reduced. Though 
he received the nomination of his party friends, yet in the 
elective contest he was defeated, through the fusion of a few 
members with his political opiwueuts. Never did he carry 
himself through any struggle with a loftier crest. He scorned 
to stoop for so glittering a prize. 

This defeat did iu no wise abate his zeal for the party which 
had failed to return him to his seat in the Senate. Chosen 
chairman of the republican national committee, although then 
filling the place of Secretary of the Interior, he promptly ac- 
cepted its burden and actively entered upon the presidential 
campaign of '76. It is needless here to mention the causes 
which had depressed the ardor of the people and had alienated 
many from the support of the party in power. Chandler, 
with a trained hand, organized the campaign, and, through all 
the summer of fear and doubt, his unquaQing spirit directed 
its movements. When the hearts of others began to fail, he 
rose in the might of his energy and infused new courage to all 
around him. At length, when the decisive day had come and 
gone, and many waited in painful suspense weary days for the 
tidings of the result, he, with the first consciousness of the 
truth, sent forth trom the city of New York that ever-memora- 
ble dispatch : " Hayes has 185 votes and is elected." And so 
it i>roved. Through all the tempest of the electoral count, the 
clamor, outcry, threats, defiance, fierceness, and bitterness of 
contending partisans, rank and file, that prophet-sentence 
brooded iu the au" ; and when the 4th of March arrived the 
nation joined in the fact, and Rutherford B. Hayes was inaugu- 
rated President of the United States, and you, Mr. President, 



LIFE AND CnARACTER OF ZACIIARIAH CHANDLER. li.) 

duly installed Vice-President and President of this august 
l)ody, over which you preside with impartial ability. ' 

Placed also at the head of the republican State central com- 
mittee of Michigan for the fall campaign of '78, the happy 
result showed that his interest in his own State in no wise 
flagged. The State did not forget his national and State work. 
When, by the resignation of Senator Christiancy, a vacancy 
occurred here, Chandler was chosen by the Legislature with 
substantial unanimity to fill the place, with manifest gratifica- 
tion on his part, and expressed satisfaction on the part of many 
of his former associates. 

The closing days of the late extraordinary session record 
another chapter in his remarkable history. The debate on the 
bill to pension the soldiers of the Mexican war broyght Jeffer- 
son Davis conspicuously before the Senate. Fervid encomiums 
were pronounced upon him, till from the galleiy floated down 
and passed among Senators this waif, " There seems to be no 
one here that dares call treason by its right name." When 
Chandler read it he quietly remarked, " There will be some 
one before the debate is closed." At three o'clock in the morn- 
ing he rose and dehvcred that philippic which will never cease 
to be famous in the annals of our national polemics. Nor will 
any of us ever forget the last time he addressed the Senate. 
Senators know well, and the country miuds well, the ijurport 
of his thoughts as in closing he said, " As a Senator of the 
United States and a citizen of the United States I appeal to 
the people. It is for those citizens to say who is right and who 
is wrong." ) 

Congress dispersed, and in a few days he went back, as he 
declared he would, to the people. In several of the States 
there were approaching elections. Political excitement surged 
over the whole country. Many prominent men took part in the 



24 



ADDRESS OF MR. FERRY ON THE 



canvass of States and did efficient work everywhere, but no one 
was held in greater request than he. It is not now invidious to 
say it. For the first time a Detroit merchant was summoned 
to New England to recount the political situation. It was my 
pleasure to witness his gi-atiiication on reading the telegraphic 
invitation from the scholarly courtesy of the Senator from 
Massachusetts nearest me. He traveled thousands of miles; 
spoke dui-ing the season at various i)laces in Maine, Massachu- 
setts, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin. 

Wending his way homeward, he spoke at Chicago the even- 
ing of the night of his death to what the Senator from Illinois 
near me, who nobly stood by him, has said, was the finest audi- 
ence ever assembled in that great city of the West on any po- 
litical occasion, and delivered what history will write, the 
greatest forensic achievement of his life. He spoke as one 
already chosen for the shaft of death. His counsel seemed the 
utterance of a dying father. Never was he more inspired, 
direct, powerful, and convincing. Of his party he there said : 

The republican party is the only party that ever existed, so far as I have 
been able to ascertain, Tvhich has not one single solitary unfaithful pledge 
left — not one. The republican party was created with one idea, and that 
was to preserve our vast territories from the blighting curse of slavery, and 
we saved them. But we did more than that. We pledged ourselves to 
save your national life; we saved it. We pledged ourselves to save your 
natiou.al honor, and we saved it. We pledged ourselves to give you a home- 
stead law ; we gave it. Wo pledged ourselves to improve your rivers and 
harbors, and we did it. We jiledged ourselves to build you a Pacific rail- 
road ; we built it. And not to weary you, the last i^ledge we gave was that 
the very moment we were able we would redeem the obligations of this 
great Government in the coin of the world ; aud on the 1st day of January, 
1879, we fulfilled the last pledge ever given. Notwithstanding all this they 
say your mission is ended and that you ought to die. 

The multitudinous huzzas that greeted this closing effort of 

an eventful career made it the proudest moment of his life, 

when he was never so apijreciated, and never so dear to the 

loyal heart of the American people. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OP ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 25 

A fitting finale to the sad disclosure of the moruiug dawn. 
"Chandler dead," as the lightning bore it on the mournful 
Saturday morning, stirred the soul of this people with the sad- 
dest tidings since the assassination of Lincoln. Alone in his 
chamber, where he had i-etired for the night, he cast his har- 
ness off, and the morning of November 1, 1879, discovered to 
the nation a loss which sent a thrill and shock as if some 
monarch of the forest had fallen. The people mourned as for 
a prince departed. 

To have given in any manner a faithful touch of the public 
career of this earnest man without recalling great landmarks 
in the progress of the nation, with which he was identified, 
would be the play of Hamlet with Hamlet's part left out. 
Simply to characterize him has been my purpose, and to show 
'mid what shoals he steered with safety. Words would fail to 
analyze such a spirit. Acts were the methods of his life, and 
national struggles must be retold to do even partial justice to 
one who, with their rise and fall, fought to win. Action was 
the eloquence of his life. He who is ever disturbed by the 
recital of the rugged pathway of the Eepublic, fails to learn 
that with nations, as with men, mistakes are the steps to suc- 
cess. Those who made them need not spurn the mention of 
them, for they have occasioned the grandeur of our national 
growth ; those who won by them need but joy over them, for 
without them slavery with its woe, in the place of liberty with 
its glory, would to-day be the inheritance of the nation. 

What more shall I say of him ? He was emphatically a self- 
made man, shaped on a giant mold; of intense conviction and 
resistless will ; a rough rudely-cut diamond, unpolished by 
culture of the schools. In strength massive, in sense sui'pass- 
ing, in mental force subduing, in fidelity steadfast, and in 
straightforward honesty as transparent as the crystal which 



4 



26 ADDRESS OF MR. FERRY ON THE 

from every angle lellects the liquid light. Little did he care 
for theories. This, all his speeches show. We have learned 
how he toiled in the early years of bis life, and how, when the 
time came, he wove his own personality into the web of the 
national fabric. His arguments were living things. His sen- 
tences were catapults. He went right to the core of every mat- 
ter. He dealt with marrow, while bone and flesh were left to 
their own decay. He was as disinterested in the public service 
as man well can be. 

It cost him time and money to serve his country. He asked 
nothing in retiu-n but a place for service. His aspirations for 
oflSce were laudable ; position he used as a means to an end, 
and that his country's good. A man of deep feeling, but his 
imjiulses always took a practical turn. It was not rose-colored 
sentiment, but vigorous thought and rugged act that filled the 
measure of his life. 

With all his public labors he never lost his fondness for home. 
In wife and daughter and grandchUdreu -was garnered una- 
bating devotion. By the frankness of his nature, the ease with 
which he was approached, and by his broad and ready sym- 
pathy, his hold upon his friends and attachment of the masses, 
gave him hosts of zealous followers. 

Floral tokens of admiration and affection were various and 
plentiful at his funeral rites. Crowning his casket was a char- 
acteristic tribute from the custodian of his business interests. 
It was a tablet of white azaleas, across which, with beautiful 
violets, was traced " Faithful to the end." The ijrocession to 
his last resting place was a remarkable scene of devotion. A 
violent snow-storm prevailed, and yet, from home to grave, the 
avenues were literally thronged with men and women, defying 
storm, to i^ay their mournful tribute to their distinguished 
dead. 



LIFE AND CHAKACTER OF ZACHAEIAH CHANDLER. 27 

Chandler's memory rests uot alone in tbe measures which 
have become a part of the policy of the Government, or in tbe 
many phases of bis active life, but dwells largely in the hearts 
of his countrymen. Time will best award him his rightful 
meed. To that just arbiter, as an attached friend and cola- 
borer, I submit bis varied career, from which I make no appeal. 

In closing my bumble tribute to his fame, I cannot forget to 
note that he never left a doubt upon the minds of others, wher- 
ever he moved, that, however he may have faltered at times 
and ways himself, be held with reverence and faith that belief 
which reckons life but tbe vestibule of immortality. All forms 
of infidelity be despised. If be did not always practice, he 
often recognized bis highest obligations. A touching instance 
of this was the sad occasion of bis burying a brother in a land 
of strangers, at dead of night, in the dreariness of rain. 
As tbe body of that brother was let into the grave without 
Christian word of parting, with none to voice a single senti- 
ment of faith or hope, he himself bowed his knees to the earth, 
and there, in the pitiless storm, offered prayer to Almighty 
God. He did not forget, but generously befriended the Chris- 
tian church. Into the secrets of his heart, on that solemn 
morning, when alone he met his God, we dare not, and, indeed, 
we cannot penetrate. Immortal now, he rests with One, who 
gives supreme value to all that is good in life, and, what is infi- 
nitely more, "He doeth all things well." 

We have seen tbe nation mourn as the heroic figures that 
held sway in trying periods of our history jiassed to the dust 
of death — Lincoln and Stanton, Chase, Seward, Sumner, Wade, 
and Morton, and tJie thronging procession of valiant captains 
and men who wrought out the salvation of tbe Union. Added 
now to tbe roll is Chandler. All these are borne ujjou tbe 
hearts of a gratefid people who delight to honor, but who are 



28 ADDRESS OF ME. ANTHONY ON THE 

powerless to recall. With uo mnrmuiing, but rather with 
hopeful spuit, do we trust steadfastly in that Providence by 
whose mysterious courses kingdoms and republics rise and 
fall; and do we reverently speak of that Being whose designs 
embrace countless myriads of men, by whose almighty will all 
nations live, and in whose omniscience the vast future of our 
beloved land is at this moment folded up. 



Address of Mr. Anthony, of Rhode Island. 

Mr. President: This scene and this occasion renew to me 
the shock which I experienced when the sorrowing wires un- 
laded their burden of grief and told me that Chandler was 
dead. It is difficult to associate Zachariah Chandler with 
the idea of death. His exurberant vitality, his overiiowing 
spirit, his commanding air and presence, all forbid it. I 
almost look to see his manly and vigorous figure — fit tene- 
ment of his manly heart and his vigorous intellect— rise fiom 
his accustomed seat, towering above his peers in this Cham- 
ber; I almost listen for that voice whose stentorian tones these 
walls have so often sent back to our ears. 

Born and educated in New England, passing the maturity 
of his years in the West, he united, in an uncommon degree, 
the qualities and characteristics of each: the shrewdness, the 
steadiness, the keen observation, the inflexible purpose of the 
one ; the freshness, the eager earnestness, the sturdy robust- 
ness of the other ; the fidelity, the truthfulness, the manliness 
of both. His sincerity was beyond question ; his honest belief 
in the principles which he professed was never disputed; he 
meant what he said, and he said aU that he meant. He had no 
halting opinions ; he had a judgment, and a decided judgment, 



LIFE AND CHAEACTER OF ZACHAKIAH CHANDLER. 29 

on every question tliat was presented to him ; and although at 
times he seemed to be hasty of speech, it was the haste of the 
occasion, not the baste of sudden conviction or of uncontrol- 
lable impulse. Those who knew him intimately knew how 
closely he had studied, how deeply he had thought upon the 
questions that he had discussed with apparent suddenness, 
and that his imiJulsiveucss of manner followed long and care- 
ful examination of the subject under consideration. It was not 
the rushing of the stream swollen by violent rains, but the let- 
ting loose of the imprisoned waters of the lake, which, long 
collected and confined, waited but the opportunity of outlet to 
pour forth with more than the impetuosity of the mountain 
torrent. He was a forcible but not a frequent speaker. The 
strength of his convictions found expression in the boldness of 
his utterance. Disdaining the lighter graces of rhetoric, his 
speeches did not sparkle with wit nor glow with sentiment, 
but they bristled with facts ; if he did not captivate by his 
style, he compelled assent by his reasoning ; and when he had 
arranged his facts and constructed his argument, his conclu- 
sion followed with almost irresistible force. 

Devoting himself to commerce and to politics, he attained 
eminent success in each and secured the highest rewards of 
both. To enumerate the positions which he filled and the 
honors that he received would be but to repeat, in feebler 
phrase, what has been so well said by the Senator who was his 
colleague. I think I shall do violence to the feelings of no 
man, and to the friends of no man who survives him in 
that State, so eminent for its distinguished sons, when I 
say that he was, by common acceptance, the first citizen of 
Michigan. The respect and affection in which he was held 
at home were manifested on the day of his burial. It was 
a fitting day for that sad office. Detroit was in mourning. 



30 ADDRESS OF MR. ANTHONY OX THE 

From every public building floated the emblems of sorrow, 
and the doors and windows of numerous private houses 
were draped in sable. The sti'eets were whitened by the 
early suow of winter, which fell with blinding fury upon 
the city. The sidewalks were thronged with thousands upon 
thousands of men and womeu, who, unable to get near the 
house, stood exposed, for hours, to the inclement weather, 
waiting to see the long and melancholy procession. 

To dwell at length upon his qualities as a partisan might 
offend the proprieties of the occasion, and I forbear. But even 
the slightest sketch of him would be imperfect without some 
reference to his partisan character. He was a party man. He 
held that the division of the people into parties was essential 
to the balance of elective institutions. He early selected for 
his support the party that was, in his judgment, most conform- 
able to the spirit of the Constitution, to the rights and liber- 
ties of the jjeople, and to the i^rospei'ity of the country ; and 
having deliberately made his choice, he adhered to it with all 
the tenacity of his nature. He believed in strong measures, 
and had no confidence in half-way methods and expedients. 
Whatever was right and projier he held was to be promoted by 
all legal and proper means. 

He died as he would have preferred to die — suddenly, pain- 
lessly, and with his harness on. He fell as the warrior falls, 
on the eve of battle, with his sword in his hand and his shield 
upon his arm. Death was kinder to him than it often is to the 
race of man, to all of whom " it is appointed once to die." Xo 
lingering disease wasted that stalwart form ; no protracted suf- 
fering enfeebled that masculine intellect. The Pale Messenger, 
unheralded and uuexpected, summoned him in the vigor of 
health and of active usefulness; touched him with his wand, and 
he sank to eternal sleep — no, we believe he rose to eternal life. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 31 



Address of Mr. Bayard, of Dela\vare. 

Mr. President : The relations I have held with the deceased 
Senator Chandler have arisen only as a consequence of my 
service as a member of this body, and it has so happened that 
by the organization of jiolitical parties we usually found our- 
selves in decided opposition to each other. 

Of bis political opinions, actions, and methods I will not 
therefore speak, for I could not do so approvingly, nor would 
it be worthy of myself or of him to attempt qualification or 
reconciliation of our decided opinions on policies or principles 
of government — in regard to which few men differed so widely 
as he and I. 

It may be adopted as a wise rule in arriving at an estimate 
of men and their careers, to precede a formation of judgment 
of an antagonist by the inquiry, " How would we have re- 
garded the action of our adversary had his energies been 
exerted in favor of the party and policies with which we our- 
selves have been allied f 

May it not well be, that seen thus through a medium of sym- 
pathetic ends, the means of attainment would have appeared 
somewhat less objectionable? 

In the maze of action and passion of daily political life we 
are not apt to judge men justly, and may easily fail equally 
to appreciate the faults of an ally and the virtues of an 
opponent. 

But there were traits and qualities in Sir. Chandler that 
all men may dwell upon with admiration and respect, and 
which I have now a melancholy satisfaction in attesting. 

He was manly, impulsive, outspoken, sincere, and generous ;, 
an open but not implacable foe, and a steady and courageous 
friend. 



32 ADDRESS OF 5IR. BAYARD ON THE 

His liaud was open, for he was " a cheerful giver." He 
possessed a iniiul of superior force and sagacity, and his facul- 
ties for the administration of afiairs were eminently practical 
anti effective. 

In one important respect he supplied an example valuable 
in any government, and especially in one so popular in its for- 
ward nature as our own. I refer to the fact that on no occa- 
sion was Mr. Chandler known to use his oiBcial position for 
his own pecuniary gain— directly or indirectly. 

His death has ended a long career of public service in 
executive and legislative capacities, and throughout his 
hands were ever clean of unjust or illegitimate gain, nor 
did his bitterest political foe (and no man evoked a stronger 
pei'sonal criticism) ever charge, or even suspect him, with 
making personal profit out of his political station and oppor- 
tunities. 

He was a man of vigorous, frank nature, and his virtues and 
his faults were the natural outgrowth. Free-handed and open- 
hearted, he kept his word, despised a coward, and loathed a 
hyijocrite. 

Standing now as it were above his newly made grave, I bear 
willing testimony to these personal virtues, and can recall 
many instances of his accommodating kindness and personal 
courtesy, which rendered the transaction of business with him 
so easy and agreeable. 

For the rest, I feel that we are too near the years of his act- 
ive political career to express positive judgment. 

To justly measui-e so aggressive, vigorous, and influential 
a character as his, it must be viewed at a little distance, as 
.sculptors often ask for the consideration of their strongest and 
most rugged works. 

Time will mellow, and reflection will soften the asperities 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAII CHANDLER. 33 



ami animosities caused by recent and heated conflict and 
which may obscure somewhat present judgment. 

Mr. President, the messenger of death came to our departed 
associate suddenly, and in the very midst of his most ardent 
and strenuous pursuits. 

Here in this hall of public deliberation, once more are we 
confronted and startled by the foot-prints of the Pale Archer, 
whose shafts intended surely for each one of us remain as 
yet in the quiver unselected. Busied as we all are with the 
thoughts and cares of daily life, should we not pause to-day, 
and thinking of the strong man who has been so suddenly 
called from our side, and from the home and wide circle of 
friends, to whom his warm heart and manly qualities so en- 
deared him : — glance down the inevitable pathway he has been 
called upon to tread, and so order our living that each may 
not fear to follow in his turn? 



Address of Mr. Hamlin, of Maine. 

The friendships formed in tliis body in long association are 
no inconsiderable compensation for the labors and annoyance 
incident to senatorial life. While patience and forbearance 
are sometimes exhausted in earnest, extended, and at times 
angry debate, and many things are said and done in zeal which 
the calmer judgment will not approve, yet the ties here formed 
and cemented will never be severed in life. As a rule these 
friendships, differing in degree, are far more general than Is 
supposed. The cases are rare and exceptional where associa- 
tion here does not produce a cordial and sincere greeting as 
we mingle and meet along the pathway of life. And the ac- 
quaintance formed here with the deceased distinguished Sena- 



5 c 



34 ADDRESS OF ME. UA3[LI^' OX THE 



tor, wliicL ripeued iuto permaucut and undisturbed friendship, 
justifies if it does not require that I should add a few words of 
personal tribute to his worth and memory in the same spirit 
with which the friendly hand would place a garland of flowers 
upon his new-made grave. Some have spoken and others 
will speak more elaborately of his public life and valuable 
services. 

I first knew of Mr. Chandlek as a distinguished merchant 
in the city of Detroit, where he had become eminent for his 
high commercial and financial integrity, and had established a 
business reputation which extended for beyond the limits of 
his own State. In one of those financial tornadoes which at 
times disturbed the business and industries of our country, 
when older and apparently more firmly established houses 
were wrecked by the blast, so well establisheil was his reputa 
tion for unquestioned mercantile capacity and integrity that, 
when himself in doubt as to his ability to withstand the crisis, 
on consultation with those with whom he had business rela- 
tions, and acting under theu- united advice and assurances of 
support, he went forward triumphantly and successfully out- 
riding the storm. An honorable merchant of known and un- 
questioned integrity, he was at all times entitled to receive 
and did receive the highest consideration. It is indeed a 
priceless legacy which he has left to his family, and he fur- 
nishes an example which should be imitated by all who care 
to be honest. His sterhng character in that regard is the 
brighter in times like these, when the crime of repudiation 
stalks at noonday and finds unblushing advocates among 
States and corporations as well as among individuals. It is a 
truth that cannot be too often or earnestly expressed, that 
an honest man is God's noblest work. 

I knew of the Senator also as a distinguished leader in the 



LIFE AND CHABACTER OF ZACHAKIAH CHANDLER. 35 

whig party in the days of its strength and its triumph. He 
was once its honored leader in a gubernatorial contest in his 
State. I also knew of him well as one of the prominent and 
leading men in the State of Michigan by whose counsels and 
under whose guidance the republican party was formed, and 
those who thought alike were induced to act together; a party 
in which he was at all times prominent, and to which he ad- 
hered with unwavering fidelity to the close of his life ; and by 
which he won that national confidence and respect to which 
he was so eminently entitled. 

But I became personally acquainted with Senator Chan- 
dler on that day when we were sworn in as members of this 
body, and at the time when he first took his seat in the Senate 
of the United States. 

In my judgment, the most prominent and distinguishing 
traits in the character of Senator Chandler were his sincere 
convictions of what he believed to be right, and his indomitable 
courage in expressing and maintaitiing those convictions re- 
gardless of consequences. He who possesses those character- 
istics may always have enemies, but he will never be without 
friends. I have myself but little respect for that man who has 
not enough of character to make an enemy, for he cannot be 
worthy to claim others as his friends. The frankness with 
which Senator Chandler expressed his opinions upon all oc- 
casions was not acceptable to many, and if he did not thereby 
incur their hostility he certainly failed to attach them to him 
as friends. But none were left in doubt as to the position he 
would occupy upon any question in regard to which his opin- 
ions were known. He was a man of convictions and courage; 
never a man of policy and compromise ; nor did he believe in 
that timidity which in effect was treason to right and justice. 

That in his life for which he was i^erhaps held in the highest 



36 ADDRESS OF MK. HAJILIN ON THE 

esteem by the loyal people of this country was the zeal aud 
courage he displayed and the labor he performed in maintain- 
ing the supremacy of the Government. Many there were who 
talked more ; few, if any, who labored as much and as effect- 
ively. With him it was always actions rather than words. 
He had then, as at all times, the boldness to characterize 
things and events by their right names, however distasteful it 
might be to others. I woitld award all honor to the brave men 
who by their heroic acts aud uudauuted courage have been so 
instrumental in advancing the best interests of our common 
country iu the field or on the ocean. I would pluck no leaf 
from the wreaths that so justly adorn their brows. I yield to 
none iu the respect I would pay to them. But courage, cool, 
deliberate, unmistakable courage, is as requisite and is as 
certainly displayed in the deliberative councils of the nation 
as on the field of battle. The highest courage is that which 
always dares to do the right and fears only to do the wi'ong. 
The victories of peace are more important than those of war, 
and to those who win them the highest homage is due. 

Not to the eusanguined field of death alone 

Is valor limited : she sits serene 

In the deliberative council, sagely scans 

The sources of action, weighs, prevents, provides. 

And scorns to count her glories, from the feats 

Of brutal force alone. 

Those of US who were so long associated with the late Sen- 
ator in this body will miss him exceedingly. In the wisdom of 
an inscrutable Providence, his seat here has been made vacant. 
All that was mortal of him now reposes in the soil of his 
adopted State, which he had honored as the State had hon- 
ored him. Those who knew him best will mourn him most, 
while the nation pays homage to his memory for public serv- 
ices so grandly performed. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OP ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 37 

Address of Mr. Blaine, of Maine. 

Mr. Chandler sprang from a stroug race of men, reared 
in a State which has shed luster on other Commonwealths by 
the gift of her native-born and her native-bred. She gave 
Webster to Massachusetts, Chief-Justice Chase to Ohio, Gen- 
eral Dix to New York, and Horace Greeley to the head of 
American journalism. Mr. Chandler left New Hampshire 
before he attained his majority, and with limited pecuniary 
resources sought a home in the inviting territory of the North- 
west. He had great physical strength, with remarkable pow- 
ers of endurance, possessed energy that could not be over- 
taxed, was gifted with courage of a high order, was imbued 
with x^rinciples which throughout his life were inflexible, was 
intelligent and well instructed, and in all respects equipped 
for a career in the great and splendid region where he lived 
and grew and strengthened and prospered and died. 

For a long jjeriod following the second war with Great Brit- 
ain the Territory of Michigan was governed by one of the 
most persuasive and successful of American statesmen, whose 
pure and honorable life, whose grace and kindness of manner, 
and whose almost unlimited power in what was then a remote 
frontier Territory, had enabled him to mould the vast major- 
ity of the early settlers to his own political views. When Mr. 
Chandler reached Detroit General Cass had left the scene 
of his long reign — for reign it might well be called — to assume 
control of the War Department under one of the strongest 
administrations that ever governed the country. The great 
majority of young men at twenty years of age naturally 
drifted with a current that was so strong ; but Mr. Chandler 
had inherited certain political principles which were strength- 
ened by his own convictions as he grew to manhood, and he 



38 ADDRESS OF ITR. BLAINE ON THE 

took his staud at once aud firmly with the miuority. He was 
from the outset a strong power in the political field; though 
not until his maturer years, with fortune attained and the 
harder struggles of life crowned with victory, would he con- 
sent to hold any public position. But he was in all the fierce 
conflicts which raged for twenty years in Michigan, and which 
ended in changing the political mastery of the State. It is 
not matter of wonder that personal estrangements occurred in 
such prolonged and bitter controversy, without indeed the loss 
of mutual respect, and in one of the most exciting periods of 
the struggle General Cass spoke publicly of not enjoying the 
honor of Mr. Chandler's acquaintance. It was just three 
years afterward, as Mr. Chandler delighted to tell with good- 
natured and pardonable boasting, that he carried to General 
Cass a letter of introduction from the governor of Michigan 
which so impressed the General that be caused it to be pub- 
licly read in this Chamber and placed on the permanent files 
of the Senate. It is to the honor of both these great men that 
complete cordiality of friendship was restored, and that in the 
hour of supreme peril to the nation which came soon after, 
General Cass and Mr. Chandler stood side by side in main- 
taining the Union of the States by the exercise of the war 
power of the government. They sleep their last sleep in the 
same beautiful cemetery near the city which was so long their 
home, under the soil of the State which each did so much to 
honor, and on the shores of the lakes whose commercial devel- 
opment, spauned by their lives, has been so greatly promoted 
by their efforts. 

The anti-slavery agitation which broke forth with such 
strength in 1854, following the repeal of the Missouri com- 
promise, met with partial reaction soon after, and in 1856 Mr. 
Buchanan was chosen to the Presidency. Mr. Chandler 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDL-ER. 39 



took bis seat for the first time iu tliis body on the day of Mr. 
Bacbauau's inaugiiratiou. It was the first public station he 
liad ever held except the mayoralty of Detroit for a single 
term, and the first for which be bad ever been a candidate, 
except when in 1852 bo consented to lead the forlorn hope of 
the wliigs in the contest for governor of Michigan. When he 
entered the Senate the democratic party bore undisputed sway 
in this Chamber, having more than two-thirds of the entire 
body. The party was led by resolute, aggressive, able, uncom- 
promising men, who played for a high stake aud who played 
the bold game of those who were willing to cast all upon the 
hazard of the die. The party in opposition, to which Mr. 
Chandler belonged, was weak in numbers but strong in 
character, intellect, and influence. Seward, with his philoso- 
phy of optimism, his deep study into the working of political 
forces, and his affluence of rhetoric, was its accepted leader. 
He was upheld and sustained by Sumner, with his wealth of 
learning aud his burning zeal for the right; by Fessenden, 
less philosophic than Seward, less learned than Sumner, but 
more logical and skilled o' fence than either ; by Wade, who 
in mettle and make-up was a Cromwellian, who, had he lived 
in the days of the Commonwealth, would have fearlessly fol- 
lowed the Protector iu the expulsion of an illegal Parbameut, 
or drawn the sword of the Lord and Gideon to smite hip and 
thigh the Amalekites who appeared anew in the persons of 
the cavaliers; by CoUamer, wise and learned, pure and digni- 
fied, a conscript father iu look and in fact; by Johu P. Hale, 
who never faltered in his devotion to the anti-slavery cause, 
and who had earlier than any of his associates broken his alli- 
ance with the old parties and given his elotiuent voice to the 
cause of the despised Nazarenes ; by Trumbull, acute, able, 
untiring, the first republican Senator from that great State 



40 ADDRESS OF MR. BLAINE ON THE 

which has since added so much to the grandeur and glory of 
our history; by Hamlin, with long training, with devoted fidel- 
ity, with undaunted courage, who came anew to the conflict of 
ideas with a State behind him, with its faith and its force, and 
who alone of all the illustrious Senate of 1857 is with us to- 
day; by Cameron, with wide and varied experience in affairs, 
with consummate tact in the government of parties, whose 
active political life began in the days of Monroe, and who, 
after a jirolonged and stormy career, still survives by reason of 
strength at fourscore, with the strong attachment of his friends, 
the respect of his opponents, the hearty good wishes of all. 

Into association with these men Mr. Chandler entered 
when in his forty-foiuth year. His influence was felt, and felt 
powerfully, from the first day. A writer at the time said that 
the efl'ect of Chandler's coming was like the addition of a 
fresh division of troojis to an army engaged in a hand-to-hand 
conflict with an outnumbering foe. He encouraged, ujiheld, in- 
spired, coerced others to do things which he could not do him- 
self, but which others could not have done without him. His 
first four years in the Senate were passed in a hoi)eless minor- 
ity, where a sense of common danger had banished rivalry, 
checked jealousy, toned down ambition, and produced that 
effective harmony and splendid discipline which won the most 
signal and far-reaching of all our political victories in the elec- 
tion of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency. Changed by this 
triumph and the startling events which followed into a major- 
ity- party in the Senate, the republicans found many of their 
oldest and ablest leaders trained only to the duties of the 
minority, and not fitted "to assume with grace and efBciency 
the task of administrative leadership. They had been so long 
studying the science of attack that they were awkward when 
they felt the need and assumed the responsibility of defense. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 41 

They weie like some of the British regiments iu the camijaigu 
of Namur, of whom William of Orange said there was no for- 
tress of the French that could resist them, and none that was 
safe in their hands. 

It was from this period that Mr. Chandler became more 
widely known to the whole country — achieving almost at a 
single bound what we term a national reputation. His defiant 
attitude in the presence of the impending and overwhelming- 
danger of war; his superb courage under all the doubts and 
reverses of that terrible struggle between brethren of the same 
blood; his readiness to do all things, to dare all things, to 
endure all things for the sake of victory to the Union; his 
ardent sui>port of Mr. Lincoln's administration in every war 
measure which was proposed; his quickness to take issue with 
the administration when he thought a great campaign was 
about to be ruined by what was termed the Fabian policy ; his 
inspiring presence, his burning zeal, his sleepless vigilance, his 
broad sympathies, his prompt decision, his eager patriotism, 
his crowning faith iu the final result, all combined to give to 
Mr. Chandleiv a front rank among those honorable and de- 
voted men who in our war history are entitled to stand next to 
those who led the mighty conflict on the field of battle. 

To portray Mr. Chandler's career for the ten consecutive 
years after the war closed would involve too close a reference 
to exciting questions still in some sense at issue. But in that 
long period of service, and in the shorter one that immediately 
preceded his death, those who knew him well could observe a 
constant intellectual growth. He was fuller and stronger and 
abler in conference and in debate the last year of his life than 
ever before. He entered the Senate originally without any 
practice in parliamentary discussion. He left it one of the 
most forcible and most fearless antagonists that could be eu- 



G 



42 ADDRESS OF ME. BLAINE ON THE 

coiintercrt iu this Chamber. His methods were learned here. 

He was plain and yet eloquent; aggressive and yet careful ; 

fearless without showing bravado. What he knew, he knew 

with precision ; the powers he possessed were always at his 

command, and he never declined a challenge to the lists. 

"Here and now" was his motto, and his entire senatorial 

career and his life indeed outside seemed guided by that spirit 

of bravery which the greatest of American Senators exhibited, 

in the only boast he ever made, when he quoted to Mr. Calhoun 

the classic defiance : 

Concurritur ; horiB 
Momento cita mors venit, aut victoria laeta. 

Mr. Chandler's fame was enlarged by his successful ad- 
ministration of an important Cabinet position. Called by 
President Grant to the head of the Interior Department by 
telegraphic summons, he accepted without reluctance and 
without distrust. His eighteen years of positive and uncom- 
promising course in the Senate had borne the inevitable fruit 
of many enmities as well as the rich reward of countless 
friends. The appointment was severely criticised and unspar- 
ingly condemned by many who, a year later, were sufficiently 
just and magnanimous to withdraw their harsh words and 
bear generous testimony to his executive ability, his pains- 
taking industry, and his inflexible integrity ; to his admirable 
talent for thorough organization, and to his prompt and grace- 
ful dispatch of public business. What his friends had before 
known of his character and his capacity the chance of a few 
brief months in an administrative position had revealed to the 
entire country and had placed in history. 

It would not be just even in the generous indulgence con- 
ceded to eulogy to speak of Mr. Chandler as a man without 
faults. But assuredly no enemy, if there be one above his life- 



LIFE AND CHAEACTEK OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 43 



less form, will ever say that he liad mean ' faults. Tbey were 
all on the generous and larger side of his nature. In amassing 
his princely fortune he never exacted the pound of flesh ; he 
never ground the faces of the poor ; he was never even harsh 
to an honest debtor unable to pay. His wealth came to him 
through his own great ability, devoted with unremitting in- 
dustry for a third of a century to honorable trade in that 
enlarging, ever-expanding region, whose capacities and re- 
sources he was among the earliest to foresee and to appreciate. 
To his friends Mr. Chandler was devotedly true. Like 
Colonel Benton, he did not use the word "friend" lightly and 
without meaning. Nor did he ever pretend to be friendly to a 
mail whom he did not like. He never dissembled. To describe 
him in the plain and vigorous Saxon which he spoke himself — 
he was a true friend, a hard hitter, an honest hater. 

In that inner circle of home life, sacred almost from refer- 
ence, Mr. Chandler was chivalric in devotion, inexhaustible 
in afi'ection, and exceptionally happy in all his relations. What- 
ever of sternness there was in his character, whatever of rough- 
ness in his demeanor, whatever of ii-ritability in his temper, 
were one and all laid aside when he sat at his own hearthstone, 
or dispensed graceful and generous hospitality to unnumbered 
guests. There he was seen at his best, and there his friends 
best love to recall him. As Burke said of Lord Keppel, he 
was a wild stock of pride on which the teuderest of hearts had 
grafted the milder virtues. 

A sage whose words have comforted many generations of 
men tells us that when death comes every one can see its de- 
plorable and grievous side— only the wise can see causes for 
reconcilement. Let us be wise today and celebrate the mem- 
ory of a man who stood on the confines of age without once 
feeling its weakness or realizing its decay; who passed sixty- 



44 ADDRESS OF MR. LOGAN ON THE 

six years iii this world withuut losing a siugle day of ineutal 
activity or physical strength; who had a business career of 
great length and unbroken prosperity ; who had attained in 
public life a fourth election to the Senate of the United States, 
an honor enjoyed by fewer men in the Eepublic than even its 
Chief Eulcrship, and who strengthening with his years stood 
higher in the regard of his countrymen, stronger with his con- 
stituency, nearer to his friends, and dearer to his kindred, at 
the close of his career than on any preceding day of his event- 
ful life. 



Address of Mr. Logan, of Illinois. 

Mr. President: Illinois by the side of her sister State 
(Michigan) mourns with her the loss of her honored son. No 
language of mine will be sufficiently eloquent to portray in 
fitting terms the loss we all feel in the death of so noble und 
patriotic a man as was our brother Senator. 

Twenty years ago, sir, in this city I made his acquaintance. 
We then differed in our political theories, but, sir, there was 
an indescribable something that attracted me and caused me 
to like the man. During the great rebellion against this Gov- 
ernment we became better acquainted and better friends, and 
from that time up to his death nothing had ever marred our 
kindly relations. I learned to admire him more and more as I 
knew him better. No man could know him well without hav- 
ing great respect and admiration for him. 

To describe him merely as an ordinary man would be to do 
his record and memory great injustice. To say that he was a 
very great man, in the sense in which that term is generally 
understood, might be considered fidsome praise; but, sir, if 
greatness consists in tiie accomplishment of honest purpose, he 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER i~> 

was truly great. The sixty-six years that have passed over 
his head were to him replete with honor and prosperity. On 
whatever line he moved he achieved a triumph. Physically, 
he was a model of stalwart mold; his mental structure was 
strong and vigorous ; in energy he was not a laggard in any- 
thing in which he engaged. He was a thinker, however crude 
he may have been in speech. He was bold in his expressions 
and manly in his utterances ; his powers of organization and 
combination were unsurpassed. Those who may have found 
themselves in opposition to him on any line, political or other- 
wise, can well attest this fact. 

He was not only a Tuan of thought, but of action ; he was 
generous, kind, true, and faithful ; his bosom welled up and 
overflowed with the milk of human kindness; his heart was 
large enough to embrace within its sympathies all classes ; his 
watchword ever was liberty and protection to all. He was a 
patriot in the broadest sense in which that term is understood. 
During his country's severest trials his services in her behalf 
in giving aid and encouragement to the people of his own State 
and in the councils of the nation by his bold and fearless 
course were great. When the storm of secession was fiercest 
he was boldest; as trials came he rose with the emergency ; in 
the darkest night he was one of the most steadfast stars. Sir, 
he was by nature a leader and controller of men, possessing all 
the necessary qualities that would have fitted him for a great 
field-marshal, the energy, the boldness, the judgment, the de- 
cision, the courage, with the cai^acity for action and council. 
He was the builder of his own fortunes, and the molder of his 
own sentiments, a man, su-, true and steadfast to his friends, 
and one who never asked or begged quarter from an enemy. 
Yet, he was just at all times to friend and foe. His frankness 
and freedom of expression at times gave offense, when by a 



46 ADDRESS OF ]MIi. LOGAN ON THE 

diflerent course he might have made his pathway smoother, 
but he chose to be candid and honest. By this manly com-se 
(as is frequently the case) he became the subject of much crit- 
icism and vituperation from a class of people that constantly 
revel in calumny. But, sir, he moved uu in his upright course, 
as became a man of worth, so that befoi-e his death he had 
passed through the mist and clouds of detraction, and stood 
out from among and above them in the full brightness of a 
glorious vindication. 

The evil that men do, lives after them; 
The good is oft interred with their hones. 

But, sir, in the case of the deceased Senator his good deeds 
were so vividly marked that they will live after him in imper- 
ishable glory, while the mistakes he may have made (those con- 
strued into evil) were of such insignificance that they wUl soon 
be lost in the great ocean of forgetfulness. 

But, sir, in paying this tribute to his memory, I do not choose 
to speak of his different ofiicial acts. I prefer to leave that 
duty to others, and to let the history of his country speak of 
these, along with the ages as they pass. His official record, as 
a whole, is a grand one, and requires no barren eulogy at my 
hands. 

Mr. President, on the last day of his life, in company with 
one other gentleman, I came with him from Janesville, Wis- 
consin, to Chicago. He was apparently in excellent health. 
On the way once he comijlained of slight indigestion. At 
about twelve o'clock I left him at the Grand Pacific Hotel. 
About five o'clock that afternoon I called at his room, and 
found him then in exceedingly good spirits and looking in fine 
condition. At 7.30 he went to McCormick's Hall. There I sat 
by his side on the stage. At about eight o'clock he was intro- 
duced by the president of the Young Men's Auxiliary Club 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZAf HARIAH CHANDLER. 47 



[Mr. Collier] to a grand audience composed of ladies and gen- 
tlemen. 

He commenced slowly, but warmed up with bis subject until 
be became so eloquent and forcible in bis language and illus- 
trations tbat the audience, in the midst of his speech, arose 
with one accord and gave three cheers. No orator during an 
address in the city of Chicago ever received more marked 
attention or greater applause. He created an enthusiasm that 
carried all along with it like the rushing force of a mighty 
storm. This, sir, was the grandest triumph of his life, and be 
felt it to be so. 

He stood forth before that grand audience like a giant, and 
with full-volumed voice spoke like a Webster or a Douglas. 
His words were well chosen ; his sentences terse and complete, 
abounding in wit, humor, and happy local hits; his logic came 
like hot shot in the din of battle, crashing through the oaks of 
the forest. One of bis last sentences still rings in my ears, 
"Shut up your stores, shut up your manufactories, and go to 
work for your country." The effect of this last speech of Sen- 
ator Chandler was electrical ; its influence is still felt among 
the business men of Chicago. The meeting adjourned with 
great demonstrations in favor of the speaker. He left the hall 
and went directly to his room and soon retired to rest. 

The next morning I was sitting with my family at breakfast, 
in the Palmer House; a gentleman came into the diniugroom 
in great baste and spoke to me, saying, " Logan, your friend 
is dead — found in his room, dead." 

Sir, I arose and bowed my head ; my heart was filled with 

grief and sorrow. I repaired at once to the room occupied by 

the Senator in the Grand Pacific Hotel, and there, sir, he lay, 

in the cold and icy embrace of death. 

Yes, sir, dead ! He is gone from us. We will hear him no 



^8 ADDRESS OF SIR. LOGAN ON THE 



more; lii.s voice is hushed iu silence forever. lu bis room, no 
one being present with him, in the lonely and solemn gloom of 
the night, he had passed from life unto death, and in sucli a 
peaceful manner that the angel of death must have wliispered 
tlie message so softly and gently that he knew not his coming. 
But, sir, what a shock it was to the living. As the fall of the 
stalwart oak causes a trembling in the surrounding forest, so 
did the fall of Senator Chandler cause the tender chords of 
the hearts of this people to vibrate with the tender touch of 
sympathy everywhere. 

Sir, the day after his death we took his remains from this 
lonely chamber to his home in Detroit, and there, iu the midst 
of his grief-stricken family, gently laid them down. xV deep, 
mournful silence hung heavily over the old family mansion. 

One unbroken gloom seemed to rest on the clustered trees, 
where the feathered songsters in spring-time had cheered the 
happy family with notes of sweetest music. The wintry chill 
from the snow-blasts without was but a faint type of the deep 
sadness which hung like a pall over every heart. Even the 
sighing wind that swept around in its saddened wail seemed 
to chant a requiem for the departed Senator. Well might his 
friends weep at their own as weU as their country's loss. In- 
deed, he was a man of whom all may speak in praise, and upon 
whose bier all may drop the tear of sorrow. When earth re- 
ceived him she took to her bosom one of her manly sons, and 
when Paradise bade his spirit come a noble oue entered there. 

Mr. President, time brings lessons that teach us that hope 
does not perish when the stars of life refuse longer to give 
light. 

The death of our brother Senator and those still closely 
following him should constantly warn us of the fact that we 
are traveling to "the undiscovered countrj^, from whose bourn 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OP ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 49 

uo tr;iAfler returns." 'Tis true the grave iu its sileuce gives 
forth no voice, nor whispers of the morrow, but there is a 
voice borne upon the lips of the morning zephjrs that lets 
fall a whisper, quickening the heart with a knowledge that 
there is an abode beyond the toinb. Sir, our lamps are burn 
ing now, some more brightly than others; some shed their 
light from the mountain's top, others from the lowly vales; 
but let us so trim them that they may all burn with equal 
brilliancy when relighted iu our mansions beyond the myste- 
rious river. 

I fondly hope, sir, that there we will again meet our departed 
friend. 



Address of Mr. MoRRiLL, of Vermont. 

Mr. Presldent: The manly features which stood forth in 
the character of our deceased associate, like those of his com- 
manding person, were so rounded and full, so distinctly pro- 
nounced, that they could not fail to give the same imijression 
to all observers, and hence our ti'ibutes to-day may wear the 
aspect of photographs of the same figure, with merely varia- 
tions of i)Osture. After the eloquent full-length representa- 
tions already supplied, 1 shall only briefly point out what I 
have learned to consider as among the distinctive character- 
istics of that life and form which lately gave such robust 
assurance of length of days, but which, to our sorrow, has 
been swiftly summoned, as we all soon must be, to that world 
of light and hope where the weary are at rest. 

The late Senator Chandler, as all may know, was born iu 
the southeastern border of New Hampshire, a region which 
has been wondrously fruitful of distinguished statesmen whose 
fortune it was to be sent here and long retained as Senators 



t c 



50 ADDRESS OF MR. MORRILL ON THE 

from other and moie populous States. Amoug these emiueut 
men were Webster and Wilson from Massachusetts, Dix from 
New York, Chase from Ohio, Grimes from Iowa, and Cass from 
Michigan, who was superseded bj' him whose decease we now 
lament. These men, going where they would, were sure to 
leave their "foot-prints on the sands of time," and were never 
less than the peers of the foremost men in this body, of which 
Mr. Chandler was so recently a conspicuous member, dear to 
us and to his own people. 

As one of the pioneers of Michigan, his ambition was, 
through sterling integrity and unflinching resolution, to grasp 
business on a comprehensive scale, and he, with others, made 
Detroit, from a small town, a commercial metropolis thoroughly 
equipped to meet the wants of trade in a great and rapidly- 
growing State. From the start he never underrated the mag- 
nificence of western prairies or western forests, nor their pres- 
ent or prospective power, and there he found a congenial 
home. 

Upon his first entrance into this Chamber he brought with 
him the same invincible energy that had crowned a successful 
mercantile career. Having led a busy life, with daily oppor- 
tunities, through extensive observation, to acquire knowledge, 
he was already a man of affairs, whose ripened judgment com- 
manded respect; and among measures he was not slow to fix 
upon the possible best rather than the doubtful, or, among 
men, to select the competent rather than the incompetent. 
When he would lead, he boldly marched in front, nor sought 
to elude the fire of adversaries. Wasting no time in the con- 
sideration of the rubbish born of ill-starred experiments, magic- 
lantern illusions, or incomprehensible theories, he aimed with 
fearless self-reliance at once to reach surefooted, solid-sense 
conclusions, shirking neither work nor danger, and bringing 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHAEIAH CHANDLER. 51 

both tbe strength and courage which he so often found to tri- 
umph over all difficulties. 

For many years in the Senate he was chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Commerce — no other so long — and conducted its 
business with unflagging fidelity and jiraiseworthy economy. 
An instance of the latter occurred when a bill, reported by 
him for river and harbor improvements, had been overloaded 
here with many prodigal additions, and, rather than to bear 
the responsibility of an overgrown expenditure, he helped to 
kill the original ofispring of his own committee, by a vote to 
table the bill. That year no appropriation was made for such 
objects, and, if there was any log-rolling greed, it received a 
check. 

Mr. Chandler was intensely loyal to the Republic — not to 
a sham, nor to such "stuff as dreams are made of" — but to 
a sovereignty under organic law, able and ready to give back 
to its citizens something in return for all services demanded. 
He would have been ashamed of a weak, spineless, and rickety 
republic, or one on any Spanish-x\merican pattern, having no 
iron in its blood, and ready to break down at the first hostile 
pronuncianiento; but he was proud of that which stands forth 
great both in peace and war, and by its regard for law and 
order, by its devotion to human rights, by its adherence to 
every pledge of public faith, by its matchless march of free- 
dom and its progressive spirit, has also shown itself worthy to 
rule and protect, with an imperishable vitality, the American 
continent. 

The attitude of foreign nations during the late rebellion 
conld not fail to be watched by our people, as it was by Sen- 
ator Chandler, with constant solicitude, not — whatever that 
attitude might have been — as throwing any doubt upon the 
final triumph of the Union arms, but as a contingency which 



52 ADDRESS OF MR. MORRILL ON THE 

at times tlireatened to prolong a bloody contest and to multi- 
ply its griefs. Oui' Republic, it is not to be concealed, had a 
few hearty friends among the monarchs and oligarchs of Eu- 
rope, but we now know that the Queen of Great Britain, in 
spite of the sinister advice of Xapoleon the Villain, was wiser 
and less unfriendly than any of her colonies, or than some of 
her ministers, who vainly hoped to gain untold advantages 
by breaking up the American Government into smaller and 
possibly less formidable proportions. Senator Chandler, 
however, never lacking audacity to defend the national life at 
all hazards, was one of those who did not believe the United 
States were any too large, and he had an abiding faith that 
its power would always be growing larger. His home con- 
fronted the western gateway to a large, but not invulnerable, 
British province, and he was wont to be impatient — genial as 
was his natural temperament — that the government of a great 
and kindred people, bound to us also by paramount com- 
mercial interests, should in such a crisis take a hostile or even 
a doubtful position, which he thought would have been most 
carefully if not fraternally avoided, provided our forces by 
land and sea had not been supposed to be fully employed 
against those to whom "belligerent rights" had been wrong- 
fully conceded. Senator Chandler's repeated denunciatii)iis 
of the primarily responsible party to the piratical raids of the 
Alabama and Shenandoah were loud and unstinted, and he 
insisted that, for these and other national wrongs, we held a 
valid lien upon the Cauadas to be enforced at our will and 
l^leasure. He gave utterance in the white heat of the strife 
to some rather angry philippics, but the gentle sway of the 
Queen saved our i>eople from any attempt to show, as no 
doubt many were eager to show, that there was method in the 
Senator's madness. As chairman of the Committee on Com- 



LIPE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 53 

morce, lie coiild uot look with composiu'e upou the captiue 
of American ships iior upon their forced transfer to escape 
capture, and he resented the foul blow by which the ancient 
mistress of the ocean appeared to ijroflt. 

If, then, he showed some bitterness to foreigners whose 
sympathies were openly against us during the war, we may 
not wonder at, and should pardon, his profounder indignation 
that any one of his own countrymen, without provocation, 
should have been so dead to patriotism as to be wUliug that 
the nation should perish, or to forget that 

This is my own, my native land. 
For a violent and bloody rebellion, against a government 
wholly free and popular, any tolerance seemed to him too 
much and any chastisement too little. But it was the rectifica- 
tion of national authority he sought — not jjersoual vengeance. 

In 1875, soon after a protracted service of eighteen years in 
the United States Senate, covering great epochs and crises in 
our liistory, he was appointed, by President Grant, Secretary 
of the Department of the Interior — a Department of the Gov- 
ernment which, perhajjs, through its multifarious branches, is 
more tlian any other dii'ectly seen and felt by the people. The 
Patent, Pension, Land, and Indian Bureaus — to say nothing 
of the educational and census dei^eudencies — each and all re- 
quire the ijerpetual and vigilant supervision of the Secretary, 
and it may be said that no other Department is more exposed 
to public criticism or to private suspicion ; but when Mr. 
Chandler entered this new and untried field of duties, he at 
the outset exhibited his mastery by organizing every branch 
of the service iipon " business princii)les," and thus its vast 
machinery, reaching to oiu- remotest boundaries, moved with- 
out noise and without friction. The confidence of the people 
in the integrity and efficiency of the Department of the Inte- 



54 ADDRESS OF JFR. MORRILL ON THE 

rior became complete, and when the Secretary left the office 
he had, as an executive officer, largely advanced a reputation 
already national. 

At our last session he reappeared here, returned for the 
fourth time, in his senatorial character, but alas! only to re- 
main long enough to show to him the unending attachment 
of his people — to us the brittleness of human life. 

Along with a stalwart frame, he carried a stalwart will, and 
was blessed with that outspoken decision of character which 
leans not to the right nor left to obtain support. Physically 
and mentally be was muscular, and, if he could have been vaiu 
of anything, as he was not, it might have been as au athlete. 
He never complained of overwork, whether that work was offi- 
cial, or on the stump, on the " conduct of the war," or on the 
conduct of his model farm, which for some years had mostly 
engaged his afl'ections and fully justified his pride. Not un- 
miudful of the rank won and worn as a merchant, nor of the 
honor he kept bright as a Senator, he yet at heart and at home 
preferred to be known as a great farmer, and as such, with aU 
the rest added, he wilf be known and long remembered bj^ tlie 
people of the State he loved so well. 

Senator Chandler was a partisan, never neutral, but a 
republican of the straitest sect. By no free-trade tariff 
■would he build up foreign trade on a degraded people, nor 
build up a gambling home trade on money intrinsically un- 
sound. He was a stanch friend of internal improvements, 
and on such questions as the equality of man before the law, 
land for the laudless, schools for the illiterate, he might almost 
be styled a Hebrew of the Ilebrews. He believed in republi- 
can men and measures, and so believed because to him they 
were nothing less than the custodians and sure promises of the 
honor and iirosperity of the country. Ilis oiiinions, based 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OP ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 55 

upon full and life-long convictions, were stoutly held, and did 
not ebb and flow with every change of the moon. He was not 
a frequent speaker in the Senate, and his wit never got blunted 
by having too fine a point, but when he did speak, having some- 
thing to say, his words were so hearty and straightforward 
that neither friend nor foe could deny their ringing force or 
misinterpret their meaning. 

Never claiming the glittering refinements or eloquence of 
schools, nor trying to escape oblivion by rhetoric, yet his aid 
as a campaign speaker was widely sought, and the remarkable 
speech delivered by him on the evening destined to be his last 
upon earth, may be cited as an example of his vigor, pungency, 
and effectiveness as a political orator. 

And thus we bid adieu to a strong man, to a true and loyal 
spirit, to him whose impassioned devotion to his whole country 
was only comparable to the tender love he bore in all his rela- 
tions as a son, husband, and father. 



Address of Mr. Blair, of New Hampshire. 

Mr. President : The man whose obsequies are now being 
celebrated in the august haUs of the Capitol was one of the 
extraordinary characters of American history. 

His career from the hearthstone to the tomb was one of 
singular individuality and power. It was one constant and 
successful struggle between great native forces marshaled by 
an heroic and aggressive soul, and every form of opposition to 
his personal advancement and to the purposes of a patriotic 
public life; yet he never encountered an obstacle which he did 
not destroy. He was over all mortal combatants conqueror, 
until on the very summit of victory, at the close of a stern and 
incessant warfare prolonged for nearly seventy years, with his 



ABDEESS OF 3111. BLAIR ON THE 



eye stUl buriiiug like the eagle's, aud his arm still raised in 
mighty action, Death killed him as with a feather, and the 
commanding form was forever still ; the strong intellect, the 
storm-compelling will, and imperial soul vanished from sub- 
lunary affairs. There was not even a premonitoi-y suggestion, 
the tiukling of a servant's bell ; not one lifted finger of friend- 
ship, not one parting tear of love. 

When shall the promise of inspiration be fulfilled ? When 
shall Death, the last enemy, be himself destroyed '? In this 
l)resence God alone is great. 

Zachaeiah Chajsdlee was a son of New Hampshire, and 
the State which even in these latter days has given to the 
country some of the greatest men of modern or of any times — 
among them Cass, and Hale, and Wilson, aud Chase, aud the 
colossal genius of Webster — is proud to add his name to the 
long list of her heroes, philanthropists, and statesmen. Born 
and nurtured among the grand and beautiful scenes of mount- 
ain, valley, lake, and stream which have given to New Hamp- 
shire the name of the Switzerland of America, Mr. Chandler 
felt from childhood that his future lay in the vast possibilities 
of the West ; that there alone was room for the energy and 
enterprise of his unfolding powers, and that he must conse- 
crate his strong arm and his sagacious, indomitable, and free- 
dom-loving soul to the development of the great central region 
of the Eepublic. At the age of nineteen years he departed from 
Bedford, near Manchester, the home of his youth, where still 
abound affectionate memories of his marked qualities indic- 
ative of the coming man, aud planted himself on the shores of 
the great lake which constitues the focus of our iuland com- 
merce, and which has given its name to one of the happiest 
aud most powerful of American Commonwealths. There dur- 
ing forty-six years, comprising the most remarkable period of 



LIFE AND CnARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. hi 

our domestic developmeut aud, I think, of our national his 
torv, ZACHARIAH CHANDLER, more than any other of her citi- 
zens, was the State of Michigan ; and during the last twenty- 
five years, with but few exceptions, as much as any other one 
man, he has shaped the destinies of the United States. 

While for one-fourth of a century he was a conspicuous 
figure in public aliairs, I do not deny that others maj"^ have 
filled a larger space in the gazettes, and a few — a very few — 
may have been more important factors in the course of events. 
Yet I know not of ten men in his generation who, in my belief, 
have furnished so much of courage and fidelity ; of will-power 
and aggressiveness, tempered by discretion and common sense ; 
of stanch and granitic consecration to conviction; of deep, 
unvarying purpose, which defied calamity and laughed at 
vicissitude; of staying and recuperating power in adversity as 
well as of tremendous energy in the hour of decisive action, 
as the man to whose memory this brief hour is given. 

Mr. Chandler was sometimes considered harsh in his feel- 
ings toward political opponents, and notably toward a section 
of our common country whose people were specially identified 
with political principles which he rejected, and an institution 
which it was one of the great purposes of his life to destroy. 
But never beat gentler heart in the breast of woman. His 
blood coursed in molten tides of hate toward every appear- 
ance of wrong, and of love for every portion of his country 
and for all mankind. His giant form and rugged outlines 
were the home of one of the most magnanimous natures I ever 
knew. His eyes were full of tears for every form of distress ; 
his hand was full of relief. His life is a record of unobtrusive 
and unselfish good deeds. 

He was a radical, but a radical is the only true conservative. 
He had plowed deep, aud he knew the fundamental principles 



8 C 



of things. He knew that principles never temporize, no mat- 
ter what those may do who profess them ; that they are exact- 
ing and inexorable, and utterly regardless of the state of the 
vote or the count, whether fair or false ; that they cannot be 
waived or violated or suppressed or conciliated. He knew, 
and what he knew he felt, that principles will always have 
their day in court, and that agaiust us or our children God will 
give them judgment aud execution and satisfaction thereof 
to the uttermost farthing for their every violation. He had 
seen death and destruction, the fell ofi&cers of eternal justice, 
abroad in the land levying upon the very life of our own gen- 
eration the tremendous damages which three centuries of out- 
raged humanity had recovered agaiust this nation, and he 
kuew that, unless the present and future should conform abso- 
lutely to the eternal ijrinciples of right and do impartial just- 
ice to the feeblest human being within our borders, tears and 
woe and death will pay for it to the last fraction of our treas- 
ure and the last drop of oui- blood. Therefore was he stalwart ; 
therefore did he grieve over the vanities of conciliation when 
he thought that principles elementary aud sacred were sacri- 
ficed in the vain hope that peace would come from their viola- 
tion ; that God would be mocked out of his intelligence and 
purposes, and permit the tiniest child to be robbed of the 
smallest right with impunity. He felt that the nation and the 
statesman who temporize and tamper with principles are play- 
ing with the hottest fire of Heaven's wrath, and that there is 
no true conservatism which does not consist in the most radi- 
cal application of immutable justice to every race and individ- 
ual among men. 

Mr. Chandler was only radical against what he understood 
to be wrong. He distinguished between the wrong and the 
wrong-doer. While he hated the former he would rescue the 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARTAH CHANDLEn. 59 

latter, who is as often a victim as an aggressor. His war 
was upon systems and policies, not upon individuals and 
communities. 

He was as anxious for the prosperity and happiness and as 
jealous of the renown of the South as of the North. He was 
great and broad, and would have been beloved by Washing- 
ton and Madison and Jefferson and by the whole family of 
patriots who worshiped the principles of the great Declara- 
tion which they ])romulgated, and who " trembled for their 
country when they remembered that God was just." 

It may be said of him that he was a strong partisan. This 
is only to praise him. The man who is not a partisan is with- 
out convictions, or if he has convictions he is false to them. 
That he was a bigot I deny. He was simply and sublimely 
true. He knew not how to prevaricate or apostatize ot " keep 
the word of promise to our ear, and break it to our hope." In 
disaster and exigency, amid defection and demoralization, he 
became the front because he was always in the advance, and, 
wherever others might go, he never fell back. jSTobody and 
nothing dismayed him. He was like a living rock on the eter- 
nal battle line between right and wrong. There he stood 
" fixed like a tower" for support in onset, for shelter and for 
rally in repulse and despair. 

He was not more ultra than others, but he was more stead- 
fast and courageously true to his cause. He only went with 
them to the full length of their common belief and profes- 
sions — but there he staid. His action was not that of mercury 
in long-tubed thermometers, rising and falling with the weather 
of expediency, but he found the line where he belonged and he 
fought it out there — not oulj' if it took all summer, but all win- 
ter and all time. 

And so it was that he expued in the hour of his greatest 



GO ADnuKss OF Mn. rA:\rEKON on the 

usefulness, while he was once more rallying the host, ami the 

most vital ijolitical truths, as he understood them, and as the 

fathers of the Eeiiublic understood them, were echoing from 

his lips on the midnight air of the Queen City by the lakes. 

And still 

Their echoes roll from soul to sonl 
And grow forever and forever. 

His career is a rare illustration of the excellence of our insti- 
tutions. It is full of hope to every struggling, brave-hearted 
youth who feels conscious of noble purjjose and inherent power. 

Zachariah Chandlee was a patriot, a statesman, and an 
honest man. He Mas of God's noblest work. In such case 

'Tis not so difficult to die. 



Address of Mr. Cameron, of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. President : I desire to add my tribute to one who for a 
much longer time than the majority of Senators was a member 
of this body. Zachakiah Chandler was four times chosen 
by his adopted State to represent her in the Senate. Few have 
been honored so frequently. This alone would be sufficient to 
say of him in pronouncing his eulogy, for no man need desire 
higher praise than to have said of him that he spent one-third 
of his entire life in faithful public service. That such service 
was rendered by Mr. Chandler we all know. That he was 
appreciated by his people, none can deny who witnessed the 
evidences of sadness that were portrayed upon the counte- 
nances of thousands of his constituents as the last sad rites 
were being paid to his memory. In all that has been said here 
of his patriotism, nothing has been uttered that ought not to 
have been, for nothing more can be said of him than he de- 



LIFE ANT) CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. ()1 

served. Michigan lias lost a brave, faithful, honest representa- 
tive, and her people may well mourn. 

I did not expect to do so, uor can I add one word to that 
which has been spoken that would be worthy of him. I merely 
desired to place my words, crude and simple as they are, along- 
side of those more worthy and appropriate addresses which 
have been placed upon the records of the Senate, in memory 
of one with whom I served both in the Cabinet and in the Sen- 
ate, and who, in all the relations of life, both pubUc and pri- 
vate, was my friend. 



Address of Mr. Baldwin, of Michigan. 

Mr. President: It is with feelings of painful sensibility 
that I add my tribute to what has already been uttered, and 
these are deeply intensified when I recall the unbroken friend- 
ship which for more than forty years existed between the late 
Senator Chandler and myself. 

Born and reared amid the hills of a New England State that 
has given to the country many distinguished statesmen, his 
character largely partook of the spot of his nativity. 

His educational advantages were confined to the studies of 
the common school and the country academy of those days. 
The wise and efficient use he made of them is abundantly 
demonstrated in the honorable record of his life. 

While yet a youth, stimulated by a laudable ambition, he 
sought a wider, a more promising sphere than the cii-cumscril)ed 
boundaries of his home afforded. The expanding West, with 
its great possibilities, beckoned him to its inviting fields. Bid- 
ding adieu to the home of his childhood, he I'emoved to Detroit, 
then but little more than a. military post on the frontier of civ- 
ilized life. Before attaining his majority he established a mer- 



02 ADDRESS OF JIR. BALDWIN ON THE 

cantile business, carrying iuto daily life those habits of industry 
and frugality which he had beeu taught and which were illus- 
trated in all his subsequent career. 

He had started in life with the unwavering determination to 
make no compromise of principle. In this he was as firm as 
the granite hills of his native State. Success was his motto ; 
but it must be attained through industry and integrity alone. 
From this purpose he never swerved, and during a business 
life of many years, marked by the vicissitudes which are insep- 
arable from commercial pursuits, his reputation was spotless. 

Under the principles which Mr. Chandler brought to his 
daily avocations he reaped his reward, not alone in abundant 
wealth, but in the well-earned confidence which the people of 
Michigan placed in his high capability and character. 

Coupled with an earnest devotion to the demands of a busi- 
ness steadily enlarging, he took a deep interest in the political 
and other questious of the day. From his boyhood he had dis- 
played that quickness of comprehension and sterling common 
sense, that intuitive knowledge of men and things, which weie 
of so great service to him in those after years when, called from 
the pursuits of a mercantUe life, he was invested with duties 
and responsibilities grave and national in their character. 

At an early day, and at a time when the political party with 
which he was identified was in a minority, he had beeu chosen 
mayor of Detroit. In this his first official position he dis- 
played executive abilities and those qualifications needfid in 
the exalted stations he afterward so ably filled. 

Nominated in 1852 as the candidate of the whig party for 
governor, he made his first appearance as a political speaker in 
a vigorous canvass of the State, but failed of an electiou. 

An anti-slavery whig from principle, opposed to opjiressiou 
in every form, he took a prominent and efficient part in the 



LIFE AND CHAKACTER OP ZACHAEIAH CHANDLER. 63 



orgauization of the republican party in 1854, devoting the best 
energies of his after life in promoting its success. 

In 1857 he was chosen by the Legislature to represent Mich- 
igan in this body. His immediate predecessor was that distin- 
guished Senator, Cabinet minister, diplomat, and scholar, Gen- 
eral Lewis Cass. Called as Mr. Chandler was from an active 
commercial life without previous training, to take the place of 
this eminent man, whose long life had been spent in the public 
service, there were those who doubted his success, but those 
doubts were speedily dispelled. In the Senate Chamber, as 
in every station he was called upon to fill, he never failed 
to prove himself equal to the duties which devolved upon 
him. 

It is t:ot needful for me to speak particularly of his career in 
the Senate, of the conspicuous position he occupied, and the 
influence he exerted in this body. That has already been done 
by his associates who so well knew and appreciated the excel- 
lence of his judgment and the earnestness with which his duties 
were discharged. But I may say that the eighteen years of 
his continuous service was the most eventful period in the his- 
tory of the country. The stability of the Constitution and the 
very existence of the Government were put to their severest 
test. An irrepressible conthct existed in the national Legisla- 
ture and throughout the land ; the sovereignty of the Union 
was threatened. During the dark years of civil war which fol- 
lowed, the unceasing earnestness with which all his powers 
were devoted to sustain the administration in its efforts for the 
preservation of the Eepublic are too well known, too deeplj 
engraved in the hearts of the people, to need more than a pass- 
ing notice. In all these hours of gloom and sorrow, in aU the 
vicissitudes of victory and defeat, in all the demands that were 
made on the blood, the treasure, and the patriotism of the peo- 



64 ADDRESS OF MR. BALDWIN ON THE 



pie, he never fixltered in bis convictions of duty, or of tho tri- 
umph of the flag, and the full restoration of the power and 
unity of the Government. 

There is one thing in the senatorial career of Mr. Chajtdler 
to which I may refer. While he was identified with all the 
leading measures of Congress, he was untiring in his devotion 
to the interests of Michigan and the great Northwest. His 
promptness in aiding the citizens of his State without distinc- 
tion of creed or party was proverbial. His zeal and fidelity in 
this particular were as broad as the Commonwealth that had 
so gladly honored him. It was this which added so largely to 
his popularity at home ; and his warmest friends were found 
alike in all ijarties. 

Called by President Grant to the Secretaryship of the Inte- 
rior, he assumed the duties of this perplexing bureau, display- 
ing a tact, an energy, and an executive ability that surprised 
even those who knew him best. With clear head and stout 
heart, prevailing evils were stamped out with unfaltering cour- 
age. With an unswerving purpose he brought order out of 
confusion, infusing new life into the various branches of the 
Department, and clearly demonstrated that the public service 
can be successfully accomplished by bringing to its aid unflinch- 
ing integrity and vigorous common sense. 

At the close of the administration of President Grant, Mr. 
Chandler returned to his home and to private life. Popular 
fallacies ui)on the subject of the currency had been widely dis- 
seminated; Michigan was not exempt from the contagion. 
These were to be met with argument and tlie delusions dis- 
l)elled. It was then that he relinquished his plans for recrea- 
tion and an anticipated foreign trip, and again buckling on his 
armor with his accustomed energy, he led the van in a decisive 
and victorious battle for honest money. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. O.j 

There are but few leaders of men; Mr. Chandler was 
clearly one of the few. For more than a quarter of a century 
he had been a faithful servant of the people. In 1878 he was 
again returned to the Senate, and he brought with him the 
same unceasing devotion to his State and his country that had 
ever characterized his public life. His \'oice again heard in 
the Senate Chamber had no uncertain sound, and was echoed 
to the ends of the land. 

During the autumnal months of the year which has just 
closed, Mr. Chandler was almost constantly occupied in ad- 
dressing large assemblies of the people, in various sections of 
the country, on the political topics of the day. In arousing 
and retaining the interest of an audience, few men possess his 
magnetic power. In these his later efforts he seemed to dis- 
play new energy and power, achieving a remarkable rei)utation 
as a most effective public speaker. His fame and his popu 
larity were at their zenith. Had his life been spared, it is more 
than probable that the representatives from the State he had 
so long and so faithfully served would, with one voice, have 
presented his name as their first choice for the most exalted 
position in the gift of the people. 

On the evening of the last day of October he addressed the 
people of Chicago. And never had he si)oken more acceptably. 
Making his arrangements to return to his home the next day, 
he retired to his room, and, after pleasant converse with friends, 
at the midnight hour he lay down to rest. It was that peace- 
ful rest which shall remain unbroken until the archangel's 
trump shall be heard at the great day. 

I need not speak particularly of Mr. Chandler's domestic 
life, or of his warm attachment to those who made up his home 
circle. We have to speak of him as a friend, a citizen, a public 
man. Strong in his convictions, stalwart in his opinions, and 



9 c 



66 ADBEESS OF ME. BALDWIN. 

fearless in their avowal, there was no bitterness in his natui'e : 
all his tendeucies were to the genial side of life. 

Friend of my youth, companion of my manhood and of my 
maturer years, farewell ! Strong in the defense of right, true 
in friendshii), and unsullied in integrity, may we who yet lin- 
ger be imitators of those traits which ennobled your life and 
have engraved your name upon the imperishable pages of your 
country's history. 

Mr. President, I move the adoption of the pending reso- 
lutions. 

The VICE-PEESIDENT. The question is on agreeing to 
the resolutions. 

The resolutions were agreed to unanimously ; and (at two 
o'clock and forty-six minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned. 



ADDRESSES 



ON THK 



Death of Zachariah Chandler, 



A SENATOR FROM MICHIGAN. 



DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

Wednesday, January 28, 1860. 



A message from the Senate, by Mr. BuROH, its Secretary, 
communicated the resohitious of that body upon the announce- 
ment of the death of Hon. Zachariah Chandler, late a Sen- 
ator of the United States from the State of Michigan ; which 
were read, as follows : 

In the Senate or the United States, 

January 28, 1880. 

Beaolved, That the Senate received with profound sorrow the announce- 
ment of the death of Zachariah Chandixr, late a Senator of the United 
States from the State of Michigan, and for neafly nineteen years a member 
of this body. 

Resolved, That, to express some estimate held of his eminent services in a 
long public career, rendered conspicuous by fearless, patriotic devotion, the 
business of the Senate be now suspended, that the associates of the departed 
Senator may pay fitting tribute to his public and private virtues. 

Resolved, That the loss of the country, sustained in the death of Mr. Chan- 
dler, was manifest by expressions of public sorrow through the land. 

Etsolved, That, as a mark of respect for the memory of the dead Senator, 
the members of the Senate will wear crape upon the left arm for thirty days. 

67 



68 ADDRESS OF ME. NEWBERRY ON THE 



Resolved, That thf Secretary of the Sen5|f e communicate these resolutions 
to the House of Representatives. 

Resolved, That, as an additional mark of respect for the memory of the 
deceased, the Senate do now adjourn. 

Mr. CONGEE. I offer the resolutions which I send to the 
desk. 
The Clerk read as follows : 

Resolved, That the House of Representatives has received vrith i)rofound 
sorrow the announcement of the death of Hon. Zachariah Chandler, 
late a United States Senator from the State of Michigan. 

Resolved, That business he now suspended to allow fitting tributes to lie 
paid to his public and private virtues ; and that, as a further mark of re- 
spect to the memory of the deceased, the House at the close of such remarks 
shall adjourn. 



Address of Mr. Newberry, of Michigan. 

Mr. Speaker : For over twenty years the name of Zach- 
ariah Chandler has been a household word in the State of 
Michigan. Hi.s business, social, private, public, and political 
life belongs solely to and is a part of the history of that State. 
He was born December 10, 1813, in New Hamp.shire, in sight 
of the granite hUls of New England and came to Michigan in 
1833, before he became of age. Soon after his arrival in Mich 
igan he engaged in mercantile business, and laid the founda- 
tion of his great fortune, showing the same careful, untiring 
energy, foresight and straightforward integrity and honesty 
that followed him through life. While thus engaged in active 
business, with quiet, persistent and unflagging assiduity, he 
acquired that knowledge of men and books that became in his 
after life a surprise even to his best friends. Constantly em- 
ployed by day in the busy marts of trade and commerce, clear- 
headed and keen, he attended to his constantly increasing 



LIFE AND CnARACTER OF ZACHAEIAH CHANDLER. 69 



busiuess. Busy hoiu's over, the book- and the library gave 
him their richest treasures. 

Blessed with a home and fireside where one of the best and 
noblest of women was ever ready to welcome him and brighten 
his life, whose domestic charm of manner was only surpassed 
by the winning grace always shown in receiving the welcome 
friends of her husband, his life in early manhood was passed 
without a thought, as I believe, of a public career. 

My own first and earliest recollections of him were when, as 
a boy, I was placed in his class in the Sabbath school of the 
First Presbyterian church of the city of Detroit. He was then 
one of the active young men of that church, earnestly engaged 
in all church- work. 

He took no active part in political life until 1851, when he 
was elected mayor of Detroit. In 1S57 he was elected Senator 
in place of General Lewis Cass, re-elected in 1863, and again 
in 1860. He was Senator continuously from 1857 to 1875, 
eighteen years. He was appointed Secretary of the Interior 
in October, 1875, and again elected to the Senate in 1879. 
During his senatorial terms occurred some of the most memo- 
rable events in the history of this nation. 

Looking back now, it is easy to see how, step by ste]), the 
United States was gradually drawing nearer and nearer to the 
most tremendous struggle of ancient or modern times, to that 
crime of crimes, a civil war. In all the events that go to 
make n\> the history of those years, Mr. Chandler was one 
of the living, energetic actors. 

The gradual extension of slave territory in the United States 
was arousing the attention, the crimes perpetrated under the 
code of slavery were raising to the pitch of horror the religious 
and moral sentiment, not only of the people of the United 
States, but of the world. The Kansas civil war was swelling 



lO ADDRESS OF MR. NEWBERRY ON THE 

and raising its portentous head on the western frontier. Old 
John Brown and his hardy sharpshooters in Kansas were 
educating themselves and the nation to a hatred of slavery 
and the extension of slave territory. Free speech, free terri- 
tory, and free men was being raised as the war-cry of a great 
political uprising. After events showed that Mr. Chandler 
had given these matters close attention. 

There was filibustering in Cuba and in Nicaragua by the 
South iu hopes of making slave States to offset the rapid 
growth of the free States of the Northwest. Threats of resist- 
ance and secession were openly made by the South. The 
crack of the slave-whip was heard even in Congress over the 
heads of independent men from the North. The doctrine that 
any citizen with his slaves had a right to enter upon any ter- 
ritory of the United States and retain his slaves, called squat- 
ter sovereignty, was convulsing the land. The atrocious 
Lecompton act was passed. The fugitive-slave law, with all 
its attendant horrors, was being enforced, and Northern States 
passed acts to protect the liberty of their colored citizens. 

Like a flash of lightning from a clear sky came the attack of 
John Brown and his army of ten or fifteen men on Harper's 
Ferry, in Virginia ; and the whole South was thrown into a 
paroxysm of terror through fear of a servile war. 

Upon all these subjects Mr. Chandler had given his views 
to the nation in the Senate. 

The democratic convention at Charleston followed iu May, 
1860. The war of factions — the South against the North— was 
the fatal wedge that then and there disrupted the old demo- 
cratic party. Substantially the opening gun of the rebellion 
was fixed by that convention, and its echoes have never ceased 
to reverberate to this day in the democratic party. From that 
fatal day in Charleston events rapidly hastened to war, actual 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHAEIAH CHANDLER. 71 

war. Abraham Lincolu was elected Pxesideut, aud traitorous 
hands were busy, traitorous hearts were plotting, to betray, 
break down, and destroy this Government. 

A Secretary of the Treasury utterly uprooted the credit of 
the Government and substantially made it a bankrupt. A Sec- 
retary of War sold its cannon and guns and shipi)ed them to 
southern arsenals, and sent its effective Army to out-of-the- 
way ijlaces on the distant frontier. A Secretaiy of the Navy 
sold our ships and naval stores and ammunition, sent loyal 
officers to sea in rotten, unseaworthy hulks, and scattered the 
serviceable ships and vessels to our most distant stations. An 
Attorney-General advised the President that he could not use 
force against a State. A Chief Justice refused to issue war- 
rants to arrest traitors. Every Department was demoralized 
or in traitorous hands. 

Lincoln was inaugurated, and then came the first gun of 
actual war at Sumter. 

Through all these stormy scenes Chandler was ever and 
always watchful, ready, alert, brave, and outspoken. 

In the debates and stormy scenes of the Senate he took his 
full share both of responsibility and debate. Long before his 
"blood-letting letter" he had warned the southern Senators 
that their actions meant, for them, revolution or a halter. He 
denounced the Lecompton act, the fugitive-slave bill, and the 
prosecutions under it. His painting of the Kansas horrors, 
burnings, whippings, and tortures of men and women who 
dared advocate free speech and free Territories for freemen, 
will stand with the tremendous philippics of the old Greek 
aud Eoman orators and statesmen. But time will fail me to 
enumerate all his labors. 

Dui-ing the civil war and the years of reconstruction follow- 
ing, his great business experience, his grand executive ability, 



ADDRESS OF JfR. NEWBERRY ON THE 



his almost proplictic foresiglit, bis extraordinary sagacity and 
wisdom in tlie conduct of affairs brouglit him to the front. 

His judgment in regard to one of the noted generals in com- 
mand of the Army of the Potomac showed his wonderful 
sagacity and decision of character, and the strong reliance he 
had upon the great undercurrents of popular opinion and 
wisdom to justify his action. He denounced this general, and 
in the most positive manner charged him with failure as a mili- 
tary commander and as utterly incompetent to conduct suc- 
cessfully a great cam^iaign. This charge, made and substan- 
tially proved in the Senate and before the country, resulted in 
a change of commanders of the Union Army, and, as a further 
result, final victory. It was sought subsequently to reverse 
this decision by an appeal to the people of the country in a 
presidential campaign, but the result showed that Chandler 
was right, and his action, as i^roper and patriotic, was triumph- 
antly vindicated by the nation, and the removed general be- 
came the defeated i)residential candidate. 

With the close of the war came another class of legislation, 
and here, as everywhere else. Chandler's clear-headed busi- 
ness experience and ready facility of grasping details and 
grouping ])rinciples and reaching successfully the end came 
into play. There were reconstruction acts and financial acts 
of stupendous magnitude to be considered, revenues in im- 
heardof amounts to be collected, taxation to be adjusted, and 
amounts to be raised that staggered the most sanguine; 
a nation of freedmen to be raised to the standard of citi- 
zens, a race of slaves to be educated to understand the 
rights and duties and obligations of freemen; banking and 
loan acts, legal-tender and currency acts; treaties to be re- 
newed ; new relations with foreign nations to be entered into, 
old relations to be strengthened ; International and constitu- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OP ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. I'.i 

tioual questions, new and old, arising out of a war unheard of 
in its magnitude and astounding as to its results, to be settled ; 
wounded soldiers to be cared for ; an army to be disbanded ; 
the Southern States to be rehabilitated; amendments of the 
Constitution to be adjusted to the changed condition of the 
people ; in a word, the autonomy of the nation was to be re- 
established. AU these and a thousand other subjects had to 
be and were considered Ijy him apparently with equal ease, 
and the proceedings of the Senate will show his participation 
from day to day in them all. 

The great men whose names are linked with the history of 
the civil war and the rejiabilitation of the nation are fast pass- 
ing away. Lincoln, Seward, Chase, Stanton, Greeley, Wilson, 
Sumner, Morton, and now Zachariah Chandler, have van- 
ished from the scenes, and in all the records of history and 
the memories of those still remaining must rest their glorious 
fame. 

From Senator Chandler's first entrance into public life 
he was always the vigorous, rapid, sledge-hammer dealer of 
telling blows — no fears or quaking as to results. When the 
blow was delivered it was straight from the shoulder, vigorous 
and effective, delivered because he believed it necessary, and 
without thinking of the tremendous effect of the stroke. 

To the looker-on often the effect was not immediately ap- 
parent; it did not seem much of a blow; but the next day, 
the next week, the next month the effect would be manifest. 
Men would be talking of his power ; and a little speech of ten 
minutes would be printed in evei'y newspaper, talked of on 
every corner, read at every fireside, in the city, in the country, 
on the mountain, in the valley, on the plain, in the palace, 
down among the miners, up among the woodmen, in the draw- 
ing-room of the swift-rolling express train, in the forecastle of 



10 c 



74 ADDEESS OF MR. NEWBERRY ON THE 

the fast-speeding ocean steamer, in tlie pulpit, in the pew, on 
the rostrum, on the stage, rousing the laggard, encouraging 
the timid, emboldening the brave, nerving the i)atriotic, strik- 
ing terror to the traitor. 

One element of his power was in his use of clear Anglo- 
Saxon words, meaning exactly what he said and saying exactly 
what he meant, and doing it so clearly that each hearer knew 
he was but crystallizing into thought and expression the ex- 
act floating idea in his own mind in the words that ought to 
be used. 

He had a masterly way of using plain words for plain peo- 
ple, with plain meaning. He used no tricks of rhetoric, no 
iiowers of speech, no studied expression, no graceful gesture. 
They would have been utterly out of place with him. But his 
facts would be true and telling — his speech rough-hewed but 
strong, his gestures ungainly but powerful. He was listened 
to by his friends because of their love; listened to by his ene- 
mies because his power compelled their attention. Warm, 
positive, and magnetic to his friends, he was stern, unyielding, 
aggressive in the presence of his enemies ; always, however, 
battling for the right as he believed it. Firm and steadfast 
in his convictions, with him the contest must go on until he 
was victorious. 

As he was always ready to give blows, so he could receive 
them. 

The story is told of him, that amid the exciting scenes pre- 
ceding the withdrawal of senatorial traitors in 1861, when some 
of them, goaded to madness by his merciless accusation of 
traitors, turned, and with fiery southern eloquence hurled sting- 
ing epithets and bloody threats and words of frenzied fury at 
him, he sat with a smile of scorn and derision, looking them 
steadily in the face, as though he heard them not but pitied 



their agonized emotions. Afterward, on being asked why he 
did not reply, he said, "Let me tell you a story." Holding his 
hands in front of him with his two thumbs together, he said, 
"Do you see, one of my thumbs is shorter than the other, 
twisted and broken. Well, once driving a yoke of oxen in my 
younger days, I got very mad at one of them, and raved and 
tore around considerably, and finally as the ox did not seem 
to care much about it, in my rage I struck him as hard as pos- 
sible with my fist, thinking to break a rib at least. The sturdy 
old ox shifted his cud from one side to the other, looked around 
at me very quietly, whisked his tail gently, as though a fly was 
tickling him— while I was just howling with a broken thumb. 
So," the Senator concluded, " it often happens that the man 
who supposes he is giving some one else a stunning blow finds 
he has only broken his own thumb." 

When Mr. Chandler first appeared in the national poli- 
tical arena in 185G he announced himself as a candidate for 
Senator. General Cass, whose term was about to expire, 
looked at the audacious young man with undisguised disdain, 
and was not slow to express his contempt for the " young man 
who," he said, " might know how to measure calico and tape, 
sell needles and thread, but was not fit to take his place in the 
council of the nation," and added, "we will remit him to his 
counter." One can imagine the expression of countenance 
with which, in language more strong than polite, young Chan- 
dler replied, "General Cass will find that he spelled his own 
name without a C when he made that remark." From that 
moment there was, on the part of the coming Senator, con- 
stant, steady, hard work to one end, and when the Legisla- 
ture assembled Mr. Chandler was elected and General Cass 
relegated to private life. 
In character and in person Mr. Chandler was like a granite 



ADDRESS OF MR. NEWBERRY ON THE 



block Struck from the rugged mountains of his native State ; 
rough-hewn, with jagged corners here and there, but solid, 
strong. His power of resistance to wrong or injustice, when- 
ever or whence it might come, his capability of sus'aining any 
load, his power to carry and readiness to assume any responsi- 
bility made necessary by his iiosition, was that of the granite 
rock always. His public life contains no instance of failure. 
Friends and patriots could unhesitatingly rely upon his help, 
assistance, and counsels to sustain the nation and its defend- 
ers. Enemies and traitors to his last day could rest assured 
that he was watchful and ready to interfere between them and 
injury or insult to the nation or the soldiers of the Union. To 
him traitors were a concrete, ever-present reality, not an al)- 
stract, far-away entity. The definition of treason in the Con- 
stitution of his country had a personal, pointed application to 
individuals. Its clear-cut definition, "Treason against the 
United States shall consist only in levying war against them 
or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort," 
his mind instantly applied personally, and a citizen of the 
United States who made war against his own country was a 
traitor, not an "erring brother," or one who had only been en- 
gaged in "some unpleasantness." An unrepentant rebel was 
a traitor ever and always. 

Yet, no one was more ready than he to receive heartily any 
one desirous of returning to his allegiance to his flag and his 
country. 

The great leader of the rebellion, who, with the oath of alle- 
giance almost warm upon his lips, went out from the Senate of 
the United States, where he had given his pledge of loyalty 
to the Government, ay, his own Government, freely and volun- 
tarily, with hand upraised to heaven, and calling God to wit- 
ness his truth, to levy war against the United States, which 



LIFE AND CHARACTER. OF ZAOnARIAII CHANDLER. 77 

act the Constitution had declared treason, was to him a trai- 
tor, whose name shoukl never be enrolled on the roll of 
honor — the pension-roll of the patriotic, loyal, maimed, and 
wounded soldiers of the Union Army. Chandler's last 
speech in the Senate went to the hearts of his countrymen, 
and will live with those of the distinguished orators and patriots 
of the early days of the Eepublic. 

That there was one man, at least, in the Senate of the United 
States who dared to lift an indignant voice for patriots and 
patriotism, and against traitors and treason, gladdened the 
hearts and strengthened the hands of millions of citizens. The 
distinction between right and wrong, between loyal citizens 
and rebels, between patriots and traitors, seemed to be fast 
dying out, till a few burning words, in a midnight session, 
forced out of his inmost heart by insulting wrong, went like a 
zigzag stroke of lightning through the wordy sophisms, and 
revealed to an indignant people the insult that was being at- 
tempted to laud, country, flag, aud all the patriotic impulses 
of the" nation. 

It is said that the eagle, when the storm arises, the light- 
nings flash, and thunders roll, and heavy winds and black por- 
tentous clouds are rushing through the heavens, spreads his 
broad wings and soars above the storm. Thus it was with our 
dead friend. When peril threatened the country, when disas- 
ter spread ruin and desolation, when men's hearts failed from 
fear. Chandler rose above the storm, scanned the ruin, the 
disaster, the' peril and dismay, grasped the situation, mastered 
it in all its details, and calmly and quietly led the way to safety. 

He was a born commander and leader of men — a ])0wer that 
would and could and did overcome all obstacles. In the calm 
or in the storm, in the whirlwind or in the tempest, always and 
ever self-poised, cool, daring, positive, ready for action. Ue 



78 



ADDRESS OF ME. NEWDEEEY ON THE 



was not the lighthouse to show others the way ; he was the dar- 
ing navigator who, when the light went out and rocks on either 
hand, could seize the helm and convey the ship safely into port. 

Earely has this country been so thoroughly shocked as it 
was on thfe morning of November 1, 1879, when the lightning 
flashed through the land — 

Senator Cha^^dler was found dead in his bed this morning. 

The air had been full of his utterances; the papers loaded 
with the closing speeches of this honest-hearted, earnest- 
minded old man in the campaign then ending. His last 
speech but one was made, and the flash, " he is dead," came 
with the stunning effect of a blow. 

Never so well known, never so earnest, never so admired 
and loved and appreciated by his friends ; never so powerful 
against, hated, and feared by his enemies ; but with harness on, 
his steady, manly voice ringing in the ears of his countrymen, 
he went down as the warrior in the shock of battle; ay, and at 
the very moment of anticipated victory, although the shout of 
actual victory he was never again to hear in this world. • 

Farewell to thee! illustrious statesman, with a lion's heart! 
Farewell to thee! uncompromising patriot, with a true soul! 
Farewell to thee! indefatigable worker, with an iron frame! 
Farewell to thee! undaunted friend, with a faithful breast! 
Farewell to thee! loyal citizen, with patriotic impulses! 
Farewell to thee ! stalwart politician, intrepid counselor, 

Fearless adviser, genial companion! 
We mourn for thee! A Senator without reproach; 

A man without stain ; 

A soul above suspiciou. 

" The air is thick with death. His flying shafts 
Strike down to-day the bravest in the land ; 
And here and there, how suddenly he wafts 
Hii fatal arrows ! Nor can long withstand 
The mailed warrior, or the statesman manned. 
Against him. But why should he hasten on 

* " * * to strike one down 

Just in the zenith of his strength and glory of renown t 



LITE AND CHARACTEE OF ZACHAEIAH CHANDLER. 79 



" Chandler! above thy grave we bow in tears I 

The generous friend, the unrelenting foe, 

In halls of state who stood for many years, 

Liie fabled knight, thy visage all aglow! 

Receiving, giving sternly, blow for blow ! 

" Champion of right! But from eternity's far shore 
Thy spirit will return to join the strife no more. 
Rest, statesman, rest! Thy troubled life is o'er." 



Address of Mr. Williams, of Wisconsin. 

Mr. Speaker : The largest tree in the forest sometimes 
breaks the stillness of the clay by the suddenness of its fall : 
so ZACHAEIAH Chandlee Startled a continent when he went 
down to death ! Thirty-six hours before he died he was the 
guest of my own city. He spoke there, both in the afternoon 
and evening, each time to a large concourse of people. He 
retired at twelve o'clock, and rested well through the night. 

Many of our citizens bade him good-bye at the early train for 
Chicago ; and little did they think as the cars roUed out into 
the light of that beautiful morning that it was the last he was 
ever to behold on earth ! Yet so it was, for within twenty- 
one hours thereafter he was dead. 

I think only those who saw him during these last hours of 
his life could realize the suddenness of his death. Though the 
grim messenger walked beside him, no shadow fell upon his 
pathway. His thoughts were all of life; he could scarcely 
have been thinking of the possibilities of death ; his every act 
and energy was devoted to the work before him ; he talked of 
nothing else, and apparently he thought of nothing else. 

He was the avant courier of republicanism. His voice had 
rung out from Maine to Wisconsin. He had moved the people 
by the potency of his presence and the earnestness of his ap- 



80 ADDRESS OF MR. WILLIAMS ON THE 

peals. He believed that national destiny itself trembled in 
the balance, and he imparted this belief to the masses where- 
ever he went, for they knew that his heart was in his work 
and his convictions were in his words. 

Amid scenes like these it could hardly have been possible 
that he had a thought of what was to come. He could scarcely 
have dreamed that while yet the plaudits of thousands were 
ringing in his ears he was to meet, in the heart of that great 
city, in the dead hour of the night, in the silent loneliness of 
his room, that dread messenger, who gave no warning and 
accepted no delay ; yet so it was, for he awoke only from the 
sleep of life to sink back again in the sleei) of death. 

No, Mr. Speaker, none but those who remember the earnest 
manner and pathetic voice with which he besought the chair- 
man of each successive meeting to telegxaph him at Detroit on 
the night of the election the result of the contest can realize 
the overmastering interest which had taken possession of him. 
The news he so longed to hear did indeed flash along the wires, 
but whether it died out in the darkness of that shoreless sea, 
or whether it penetrated the mystic regions of the great be- 
yond, no word ever comes back to tell us. 

We who speak of Zaohariah Chandler here to-day must 
speak of him as he was, for he never feared to speak for him- 
self. And his words will be cherished and remembered when 
ours are lost and forgotten. No flowers of rhetoric, no high- 
wrought historic parallels, no half-drawn apologies for what he 
was or what he did, will do for him. 

He was a plain, blunt man. He was combative, he was aggress- 
ive, and in what he believed to be right he was relentless. He 
was a man of the people, he was a friend of the poor, he loved 
liberty, he hated oppression, he abhorred treason, and he detested 
hypocrisy. He was a partisan, he was a patriot, he was a hero ! 



LIFE AND CHABACTER OF ZACHAEIAH CHANDLER. 81 

Like the oak he resembled, he was reared in storms and 
rocked in tempests. Strong and massive in body, he was 
stronger in will ; firm in principles, he was formidable in argu- 
ment ; quick to see the salient points of a question, he brought 
his broad common sense to bear upon it, and not infrequently 
by a single sally he broke through and demolished a whole 
battle-line of sophistry. Who can ever forget the expression 
of that face, or the instantaneous effect produced upon thou- 
sands, when from the rostrum he put that one question : 

If this ia not a government, what did the rebels suirender to at Appo- 
mattox? I tell yon, my friends, they surrendered to the Government of the 
United States of America! 

Or when, on that memorable night, in the Senate of the 
United States he made that terrific onslaught which startled 
both sides of the Chamber and roused the whole country, 
what member even of the opposition who did not feel the 
force of what he said? In the language of Mr. Webster, it 
was one of those outbursts of passion and power which, if 
they come at all, come " like the outbreaking of a fountain 
from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with 
spontaneous, original, native force ! " 

This was the secret of Mr. Chandler's power. His methods 
were clear and practical, his reasoning synthetic, and his at- 
tacks spontaneous and irresistible. While others were exam- 
ining the bricks and mortar in the structure, and carefully 
calculating the resistance to be overcome, he selected his 
point of attack, and with a crowbar and sledge breached the 
walls, and carried the citadel by storm. 

Savants and philosophers may style these methods crude 
and Western, but while the names of Douglas, Morton, and 
Chandler live the people will believe them to possess an innate 
force which all the learning of the schools cannot give. 



11 



82 ADDRESS OF ME. WILLIAMS ON THE 

The opinion is often expressed that certain very good and 
competent men are holding back a political millennium by 
their persistent refusal to accept ofiQce and enter upon public 
life. Somebody has ungraciously said of such, that they were 
made up of two parts of selfishness and two of timidity. I 
know not how the fact may be, but if it be true, Zachaeiah 
Chandlee did not belong to this class. He never took 
counsel either of his selfishness or his fears. He was not 
possessed of that happy temperament which enabled him 
to stand quietly by while aggressive wi-ong was crushing 
out defenseless right. 

By the very nature of his make-up, he was forced to enter 
the arena. And thus he met all the malignity, denunciation, 
and abuse which ever come to the earnest, the faithful, and 
the true. Yet nothing could dissuade him. The critical might 
cari>, the mediocre patronize, and the malign scoff and deride, 
but all the pigmies of earth and sky could not stay the daunt- 
less old hero in the work he had marked out for himself. To 
such a man the holding of civil office was the merest incident 
ui the world ; for whether in public or private life he was 
the natural defender of the people. 

That Mr. Chandlee was intense and bitter, that he some- 
times wrongly suspicioned the motives and acts of others, is 
only to say that be belonged to the class of positive men ; but 
that under it all there was a broad and generous sincerity and 
a heart as tender as a child's none who knew him need to be 
told. He was, indeed, in earnest; but if any supposed his 
earnestness took on only the cold malignity of hate, they 
studied his character to but little purpose. I could only 
claim to know him as we all knew him here, yet I do not care 
to be told that he was moved by other than the loftiest and 
purest motives. 



LIFE AND CHAEACTER OF ZACHAEIAH CHANDLER. S3 

Only the night but one before he died, in my own house, in 
common with others, I saw that firm lip quiver and those stern 
eyes moisten as he recounted the measureless wrongs which 
had been visited upon the poor freedmen of the South ; and I 
beheve mortal man was never actuated by higher or holier mo- 
tives than he when he swore by the God that made him that 
he would never bate one jot nor tittle of effort until these mon- 
sti'ous wrongs should be righted. 

I allude to these things here in no partisan spirit, for that 

should be banished from these halls to-day; but I speak of 

them only to be just to him in his grave, as he was just and 

fearless before all the world. And I feel siure that could he 

have left any injunction behind, it would have been : " If you 

speak of me at all, in the language of sacred song, speak of 

me — 

Just as I am." 

Burke I think it was who said that true sentiment was the 
logic of common sense. Such, I think, was the sentiment of 
ZACHAEIAH Chandler. It was plain, practical, and direct. 

No more touching provisions can be found in the wiUs 
of i^ublic men than in those of Thaddeus Stevens and Mr. 
Chandler. While the former made no provision for the 
care of his own grave, he set aside a sum of money and di- 
rected that the "sexton keep his mother's grave in good order, 
and i)lant roses and other cheerful flowers at its four corners 
every spring." 

So Mr. Chandler, with just words enough to express his 
meaning, said, in effect, to his wife and daughter, " You are 
my only heirs ; as you have loved and trusted me, so I love 
and confide in you. I lay my fortune at your feet, and that 
you may be unfettered in its enjoyment and use, I relieve it 
from any word coming back from the grave." 



84 ADDRESS OF MR. HUBBELL ON THE 

Could aflfection be more tender? Could confidence be more 
complete? Where shall the well-springs of the human heart 
be better studied than in the wills of these two remarkable 
men? 

Impartial history will assign Mr. Chandler his proper 
place in the ranks of America's pubUc men. We cannot do 
that here to-day. It may, however, be safely said that if Sew- 
ard, Chase, and Sumner might draft the plans for the fabric 
of freedom, Wade, Stevens, and Chajstdler might lay its foun- 
dations and lift its walls to completion. Noble trio! How 
fiercely they wrought ; how well they triumphed. 

The last of them now sleeps on the banks of the river he 
loved so fondly. And to-day Wisconsin comes with her fos- 
ter-mother, Michigan, to lay a garland upon his grave. He 
loved to teU us that the boundaries of his own county of 
Wayne once embraced both our States. Eepresentatives of 
Michigan, your loss is our loss ; and over our common calamity 
a nation grieves to-day. We come to mingle our tears with 
yours, and to utter the fervent prayer that he who sleeps 
so near your metropolis may rest in peace so long as that city 
shall stand — yea, so long as the waters that roll by it flow out- 
ward to the sea. 



Address of Mr. HuBBELL, of Michigan. 

Mr. Speaker: It is said that "death loves a shining mark, 
a signal blow." Than in Zachariah Chandler, whose death 
to-day we mourn in common with the whole patriotic people 
of the nation, the "fell sergeant" has had few more brilliant 
marks, has struck few nobler lives, and the Eepublic has had 
to mourn no more useful citizen, no more upright or purer 
patriot. 



LIFE AND CnAKACTEK OF ZACHAIlIAn CHANDLER. 85 

Mr. Chandlee was a native of New England. He was 
born at Bedford, in the State of New Hampshire, December 
10, 1813 ; in the State which gave birth to and molded the 
character of Daniel Webster; in the land of strong convic- 
tions, of sterling integrity, of uncompromising patriotism, and 
inflexible devotion to freedom. Here in his native State, 
building up a vigorous frame and robust health among its 
granite hUls — here amid its noble associations and grand in- 
stitutions of learning ; amid a people rejoicing in their revo- 
lutionary history — in its perils and privations and its glories 
and triumphs— loving freedom and hating oppression, Zach- 
ARiAH Chandler imbibed those rigid principles of justice, 
that invincible love of freedom and of country, that incor- 
ruptible integrity which he transplanted in his new home in 
the then " far West," and which distinguished every act of 
his public life, and in support of which he died literally in 
harness. 

In his home in Michigan, the State of his adoption, these 
sterling qualities were combined with and regulated by an 
intelligence and sagacity so rarely at fault as to enable him 
to amass an ample fortune, place him at the head of the busi- 
ness men of the State, and soon point him out as a man of 
mark, as a man of rare and genuine merit, of great force of 
character, of intrepid courage and sterling worth, and won 
for him the respect, confidence, and enduring love of its people. 

No man was ever trusted in public or private life as was 
Zachariah Chandler by the people of Michigan, and no 
man ever ended a public career against whose integrity less 
could be said. 

No position in their gift, however high or responsible, no 
honor, however great, was too high for his merits or too great 
for their love. Thus in 1851 he was mayor of Detroit; in 



86 ADDEESS OF MR. HUBBELL ON THE 

1852 the whig candidate for governor ; in 1857, a Senator of 
the United States; in 18C3, re-elected as Senator; in 18C9, 
again re-elected; and again in 1879. In 1875 he was given 
by President Grant the portfolio of the Interior. In every 
trust he acquitted himself honorably, fearlessly, ably, and re- 
turned it impressed with the marks of his genius. 

In nothing, indeed, was Mr. Chandler an ordinary man. 
As a husband and a father and a friend, ever faithful, trust- 
ing, and true, his great, manly heart delighted in exhibitions 
of the tenderest devotion. He never abandoned a friend, and 
was ever truest and most devoted to him in the hour of his 
misfortiine or trials. He was not a place-seeker nor a time- 
server ; but he was a lover of his country and a hater of its 
enemies, and always fiUed to the measure the place he occu- 
pied; and being a man of strong convictions and dauntless 
courage the enemies of his country always felt his presence, 
and were never spared his bitterest invectives. 

ilr. Speaker, I knew IVIr. Chandler intimately. He was 
to me a " friend, philosopher, and guide," and I should be 
unjust to his memory did I not speak of him as he was — a man 
who always acted his honest convictions without regard to or 
fear of the consequences. 

As a Cabinet minister, with the portfolio of the most com- 
plicated and troublesome Department of the Government, 
noted for its intrigues and scandals, the Interior, with its im- 
portant divisions and the intricate and deUcate character of 
many of their important duties very difficult to comprehend 
and to intelligently manage, and rendered doubly so by out- 
side combinations for the promotion of private advantage and 
fraud — in that responsible and difiScult trust, his masterly 
executive ability, his great common sense, his disciplined busi- 
ness habits, his integrity, his wonderful industry, his intuitive 



LIFE AND CHAHACTER OF ZACHAEIAH CHANDLER. 87 



knowledge of men and their motives, and his great courage 
and nerve rendered his administration such a marked success 
that his able and accomplished successor publicly admitted 
that his ambition was to leave the Department in as good 
shape as he received it. He never parleyed with men whom 
he believed to be dishonest. To illustrate his blunt and direct 
methods, pardon an anecdote : Soon after he took charge of 
the Interior Department, I met him here in Washington and 
the usual salutations had hardly passed between us when he 
said: "I have been reforming in the Interior Department to- 
day." And in reply to my query as to what he had done he 
replied : " I have emptied one large room and left it in charge 
of a colored porter, who has the key, who cannot read or write, 
and who is instructed to allow no one to enter it without my 
orders, and I am under the impression that the pubUc inter- 
ests are safe so far as that room and its business are concerned 
until I can find some honest men to put into it." A further 
conversation developed the fact that by plain business meth- 
ods he had collected his proofs, and thus armed he could only 
deal a deadly blow. Thus early he mastered all the intricate 
and difacult details of the service; early he clearly compre- 
hended its needs and vigorously and laboriously applied him- 
self to their practical accomplishment. In short, he estab- 
lished order where chaos pre\nously ruled, reorganized details, 
secured efiaciency, and effected a due responsibility in all the 
branches of the service. 

Honest himself, he tolerated no doubtful practices, no im- 
proper relations in the Department. Fraud vanished at his 
touch. Incompetency and imbecility met their reward, and 
he ti-ansraitted the portfolio to his successor with the Depart- 
ment purged of many iujiu'ious scandals, and the service, in 
all its details, greatly simplified and improved. 



As a Senator, Rome, in the days of her highest virtue and 
greatest strength, had none nobler, purer, or more fearless. 
Entering the Senate during the stormy debates and violent 
struggles of the sections on the question of slavery, Mr. Chan- 
dler stepped at once to the front as a recognized and trusted 
leader on the side of freedom. The times were full of peril, 
and terribly tested all the metal in men's soids. But during 
that struggle, in debate, from 1857 until 1860, carried on on 
the one side by patriotic, liberty -loving men, who hated slav- 
ery and antagonized it because they dreaded its extension, 
and on the other by men who worshiped slavery, were bound 
to extend and perpetuate it or destroy the common govern- 
ment inherited from the fathers, who recognized the code, and 
under its bloody rules tried to intimidate the representatives 
of the people from the Northern States in the discharge of 
their duties, no man ever did or will say that Zachakiah 
Chandler ever faltered in the discharge of his duty as he 
saw it. He abhorred the code, condemned alike by the laws 
of man and of God, yet while in the discharge of his public 
trusts it had no terrors for him, and never caused him for a 
moment to falter in the full and complete performance of his 
duties. 

It is not my purpose here to enter into that memorable de- 
bate upon the question of slavery and the rights of the States 
which preceded and culminated in the war of the rebellion, 
more than to say that Mr. Chandler's sagacity readily pen- 
etrated the designs of the southern leaders, readily saw that 
slavery was only a means to the consummation of their pur- 
pose—the disruption of the Union. Indignantly and vehe- 
mently he raised his voice in exposure of this traitorous plot. 
He was " no orator as Brutus " was. He apparently despised 
aU mere ornaments of speech, but in his vigorous, terse En- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 89 

glish he left no doubt as to his meaning and purpose. And 
thus he fearlessly labored everywhere and on all occasions to 
arouse the country to a sense of the impending danger, and to 
prepare it for a conflict of arms in support of the Union. He 
had no faith in compromise, but felt that the inevitable and 
deadly conflict must come, and tried to prepare his countrymen 
for it. The events which rapidly followed demonstrated the 
wisdom as they did the justice of his conclusions and his 
course. The rebellion came u^jon us with its appalling sacri- 
fices and sufferings and awfully vindicated his sagacity and 
the justice of his charges against the southern leaders. 

Great names and great men, so called, unless distinguished 
by worth and patriotic motives and corresponding actions, 
received from him no homage. His country to him was all in 
all. Every patriotic man he claimed as a friend, and to every 
patriot, to aU patriots, of every grade or character, if their 
sincerity were demonstrated by works, he yielded his whole 
support, all his weight and influence. 

But the man who laid himself down in the pathway of his 
country's honor and glory, the man who, whether from imbe- 
cility or design, obstructed or impeded his country's triumph- 
ant march to victory, to perfect and permanent peace, to that 
man Zacharlah Chandler was an inflexible foe, and to him 
he fearlessly ijroclaimed his hostility. 

As a member of the Committee on the Conduct of the War 
he was active, terribly in earnest, and untiring in industry, 
and rendered to the nation the most important services. No 
name, however high, baffled his inquiries or escaped his judg- 
ment. 

Notwithstanding he had regarded McClellau's appointment 
as wise and judicious, yet, for reasons already made a part of 
our country's history, he boldly arraigned him in the face of 



12 c 



90 ADDRESS OF 3IR. HUBBELL ON THE 

the country, in the teeth of his great popularity and the great 
power he wielded in command of the armies, as utterly incom- 
petent for the weighty duties of his high position, and de- 
manded his removal, as justified by the highest reasons of ex- 
pediency and the loftiest motives of patriotism. 

Believing that Pope, at second Bull Eim, was sacrificed by 
Fitz-John Porter, and that our loss of life and disaster at that 
battle was caused by Porter's insubordination, he boldly de- 
nounced him as a traitor to his country and demanded his trial 
and ijunishment. 

Against all men whom he believed to be untrue to his 
country in her hour of peril, his great patriotic heart instinct- 
ively rebelled, and they were made the victims of his terrible 
denunciations. 

The war of the rebellion ended, Mr. Chandler took a 
prominent part in that legislation which reconstructed the 
States in rebellion and gave them representation in the halls 
of Congress, and here as elsewhere his career was marked by 
the same distinguishing traits of character. 

Coming into the Senate again in 1878, he immediately 
stepped to the front and the country knew that plain, honest 
old Zach. Chandler, as they loved to call him, was again in 
his seat, and the democratic party, which he never loved, was 
made painfully aware of his presence. Stripping the guise of 
flimsy pretexts from off the reasons actuating the men who 
forced the extra session, he sounded the keynote of alarm — 
the bugle-caU of the campaign of 1879, in which he labored 
day and night, closing his great work in one of the ablest 
and grandest speeches of his life in the Garden City of 
America, where, ere the dawn of day succeeded his great 
effort, he died. The life of a great, earnest, honest, and broad- 
souled man went silently out with the watches of the night, 



LIPE AND CnAUACTER OF ZACHAUIAH CHANDLER. 91 

and in his death the Republic mourns an upright and useful 
citizen, a noble Senator, a peerless patriot, and humanity an 
abiding friend. Apparently in robust health, in the vigorous 
exercise of all his great faculties, peacefully and serenely, 
without a struggle and free from pain, his noble spirit sank 
into the "blind cave of eternal night," passed triumphantly 
from the active scenes and duties of worldly Ufe to the judg- 
ment-seat of his God. 

Thus yields the cedar to the ax's edge, 
Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle ; 
Under whose shade the ramping liou slept ; 
Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree, 
And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind. 

But, though dead, he is not forgotten. In every patriot's 
home, in the home of every friend of humanity, of every 
friend of freedom and free institutions, his name will long be 
cherished with endearing pride, and history in recording his 
actions, in reviewing his services to his country and to man- 
kind, and in its judgment of his character, will as surely rank 
him high among the good and great men of his times. 

Peace to his ashes. 



Address of Mr. Crapo, of Massachusetts. 

Mr. Speaker: The life of Zaceiariah Chandler is a 
marked illustration of that character which is developed by 
our American institutions and which is distinctly American. 
In no other country and under no other system of society and 
laws do we look for the manifestation of such individual 
growth and power. Starting from the humble surroundings 
of a New England farm, with the limited advantages of a 
plain and simple country home, with the training of the un- 



92 ADDRESS OF BIR. CRAPO ON THE 

pretending fireside and village school, he emerges into self- 
reliant manhood. Then follow the struggles of life amid the 
activities and hardships of a western settlement; the compe- 
titions of business, bringing substantial rewards; the contests 
for higher position, while holding securely the advances made; 
the reaching out for wider influence and greater mastery over 
the thoughts and acts of men; and, finally, the control and 
power which made him a recognized leader and a mighty force 
in the laud. With no external advantages to aid him, he 
overcame obstacles and conquered opposition and secured for 
himself commanding position and influence. He was con- 
scious of his own inherent strength ; he knew that he lived in 
a country full of opportunities to the earnest and faithful man ; 
and he realized that in this free land men have equal right to 
place and wealth and power if they have will and strength to 
win them. He asked no odds and he accepted no gifts. What 
he was and what he possessed came as the result and reward 
of his own personal efforts. He did not drift into high posi- 
tions, but earned them by sheer exertion and force of char- 
acter. His history is the record of a successful man, and we 
can find few more impressive examples, even in this country 
which is so full of personal achievements. 

In private life Mr. Chandler was bluff, hearty, and sincere. 
He was outspoken with the candor of positive truth. He did 
not conceal his admiration of one whom he liked, and he was 
equally open in the expression of disapprobation of one he dis- 
liked. He was frank and generous in his approval, and he 
was equally free and severe in his condemnation. There was 
an integrity in his friendship and an earnestness in his recog- 
nition of friends which endeared him to those who knew him 
intimately. 

The personal qualities which marked his private intercourse 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 93 

were still more conspicuous in his public life. There was 
always the same positiveness of manner and speech. His 
large frame, his vigorous health, and commanding presence 
were not more remarkable than the robustness of his mind, 
his stout heart, his stalwart courage, and resistless energy. 

His political opinions were formed during the controversies 
of the Missouri compromise and the attempt to estabhsh 
slavery in Kansas. He entered public life just as the strug- 
gle for national supremacy was culminating into war. He re- 
garded it as a question of liberty or slavery, of nationol unity 
or its dismemberment. He saw with clear vision the terrible 
magnitude of the issue, and this made him a partisan. It was 
impossible for him with his consciousness and convictions to 
be otherwise than a partisan. He was intensely in earnest. 
He feared southern aggression, and unceasingly fought it; he 
detested disloyalty, and was bold in his discoveries of it; he 
abhorred the rebellion with intolerant hatred, and labored for 
its destruction. He would grant no concession where he be- 
lieved the principle was vital, and, however hot or bitter or 
uncertain the fight, he neither gave nor asked for quarter. 
During the dark days of war his heart never faltered and his 
voice never trembled. He exacted the utmost fidelity and dili- 
gence from those who supported the Union cause, and had little 
respect or charity for those who brought failure to its arms. His 
watchfulness and aggressiveness did not cease with the war. 
When concDiation seemed to have failed, and the old strife, which 
it was supposed had been buried on the battle-field, was revived 
in Congress, Mr. Chandler naturally came to the front, and 
with the same defiant courage of opinion which gave him master 
influence during the war, he proclaimed in the Senate, and before 
the people, the dangers which threatened the peace and good or- 
der of the nation, in language which could not be misunderstood. 



94 ADDRESS OF MB. CKAPO ON THE 

Perhaps in a less turbulent period of our history Mr. 
Chandler would not have occupied so prominent a place. 
He was not a great statesman, but he was needed in an 
exigency, and most nobly did he meet the requirement. No 
man better understood the patriotic impulses of the people, 
and no man had greater power in expressing and arousing 
popular sentiment. He was in sympathy with the masses; 
he had an intense sense of justice between man and man; he 
estimated men according to their true worth; he never stood 
upon his dignity, nor by word or manner indicated any per- 
sonal superiority. The coarse dress and rough manner did 
not repel him, but every man, however plain or humble, was 
at ease in his presence. He stood nearer to the people and 
had a stronger hold upon them than any other Senator. 

The secret of his success and his control of the popular 
mind may be found in his sincerity, his intensity, his con- 
stancy, and his directness. There was no deceit in his nature. 
You were never left in doubt about his views, and, what is 
more, he was never in doubt himself. You always knew where 
to find him. He used vigorous Saxon. His utterances were 
plain and terse. His illustrations, although sometimes extrav- 
agant, were full of rugged meaning, and what they lacked in 
elegance was made up in force. Whatever he said he meant 
should be understood just as he said it. 

There was nothing negative about him. His policy was 
never timid nor vacillating. However great the responsi- 
bility, he never hesitated to assume it, but he always went to 
the front. It was this positive, aggressive, uncompromising 
spirit which gave him leadership and enabled him to infuse 
courage into men of less boldness. He was impatient of oppo- 
sition, and as ready to condemn his own party associates as 
his opponents when their policy was at variance with his own. 



LIFE AND CHAKACTER OF ZAOHAKIAH CHANDLER. 05 

Mr. Chandler was not free from faults, and lie never at 
tempted their concealment. Every one knew what manner of 
man he was. He made no claim to greatness, nor to any 
special merit. The men who denounced him as a bitter par- 
tisan, and who threw stones of hate and ridicule against him, 
even now, before the period of passionate strife in which he 
was an actor has entirely passed away, have acknowledged 
his virtues. 

His personal integrity, his resistless energy, his burning 
patriotism, his rugged frankness, and his fearless devotion to 
duty, made him conspicuous in the legislation of the country 
and in the councils of his party. 

He died with the harness on, in the mid-day of his fame and 
usefulness, actively participating with aU the fervor of his 
nature in the struggle which he believed of vital consequence 
to his countrymen. 

We cannot but admire the character of a man who " was the 
architect of his own fortune," and who, under a beneficent and 
free governmt nt, which gives equal advantages to all, relying 
upon his own brave heart and strong arm and indomitable 
will, won a name and wielded a power which will continue far 
beyond the generation in which he lived. 



Address of Mr. BRE^A;■ER, of Michigan. 

Mr. Speaker: On the 1st day of November last the sad an- 
nouncement was made that Senator Chandler was dead; 
that his lifeless remains were found in bed at the Pacific 
Hotel, in the city of Chicago. The report was doubted at first 
by the friends of the deceased Senator, but all doubt was soon 
removed, and the city and State of his adoption arrayed them- 
selves in the habiliments of mourning. Senator Chandler 



96 ADDRESS OF BIE. BREWER ON THE 

was known to more of the people of Michigan than any other 
of her citizens. The name of Zachaeiah Chandler, or " Old 
Zach," as he was more commonly called, was familiar in every 
household, and was spoken with the utmost freedom by old 
and young alike ; but to-day, to them, his voice is stilled in 
death; to-day his name is spoken with sadness and sorrow 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, at least in every Northern 
State. Mr. Chandler's life in many respects was an eventful 
one. Born in the town of Bedford, amid the rugged hills of a 
New Hampshire home, he soon began to exhibit those traits 
of character which in after life made him so prominent. In 
1833, when but twenty years of age, he became satisfied that 
his native State was no field in which to develop his busi- 
ness powers, and he sought a home in the then undevel- 
oped great Northwest, and found it in the city of Detroit. 
What a broad field was then opened to the view of the ener- 
getic young New Englander! Nearly all our country west 
of Buffalo at that time was but an uninhabited wilderness; 
Michigan was but a Territory, with a few thousand inhabit- 
ants, and contained within its territorial government what is 
now known as the State of Wisconsin. The city of Detroit 
was but a small town, its inhabitants being largely engaged 
in trade with the natives of the forest. But the city of De- 
troit to-day is one of the great cities of the Northwest, while 
Michigan has a population of a million and a half of people, 
and Wisconsin nearly an equal number, and both of these 
great States are teeming with all the enterprise and industry 
of the age. Such result was obtained during the years of Mr. 
Chandler's residence in Michigan, and was largely due to 
his fostering care while in official life. Wonder not, then, that 
the city of Detroit and the State of Michigan mourn the loss of 
her honored dead, for he was always a watchful guardian of 



LIPE AND (IHAKACTEU OF ZACIIARIAU CHANDLER. 97 

their interests. The plain result of his watchful care for his 
State and his desire to advance her prosperity while in public 
life is visible along all the great chain of lakes and rivers which 
encompass her borders. No one has done more to advance 
and build up the interests of the Northwest than the late Sen- 
ator. 

When Mr. Chandler arrived in Detroit, like thousands of 
other young men who then sought a home in the West, his 
greatest wealth was his robust constitution, and Ids chief capi- 
tal to start with in the great battle of life was his habits of 
industry, his self will, pluck, and integrity. Soon after his 
arrival he entered into a business partnership in the dry-goods 
trade with one Franklin Moore, a brother-in-law. This part- 
nership continued but for a few years, when Mr. Moore retired 
from the firm, Mr. Chandler continuing in the business until 
he accumulated a fortune and became the most prosperous 
merchant in the State. Mr. Chandler's political life com- 
menced in 1851, when he was nominated by the whigs of De- 
troit and elected mayor of said city. His extensive business 
had made him acquaintances and friends all over the State, 
and in the fall of 1852 he was nominated as the whig candi- 
date for governor, but, while running largely ahead of his 
ticket, he was defeated by Hon. Eobert McClelland, his demo- 
cratic opponent. He made his first political s])eeches in his 
canvass for the governorshii), and soon became the recognized 
leader of the whigs of his State. He took an active part iii 
the formation of the republican iiarty at Jackson in 1854, and 
a leading part in the campaigns of 1854 and 1856, speaking in 
every part of the State, and his plain logic, clear and forcible 
language gained him friends wherever he went. When the 
republicans obtained control of the Legislature in 1856 the 
party and people with great unanimity demanded the election 



13 



98 ADDRESS OF MR. BREWER ON THE 

of Mr. Chaudler to succeed General Lewis Cass in the Sen- 
ate of ttie United States. He took bis seat in the Senate on 
the 4th of March, 1857, and was twice re-elected, and served 
continuously for eighteen years. The venerable Hannibal 
Hamxin is the only one of his first associates in the Senate 
who is serving in a like capacity to-day, and, I believe, the 
only one now in public life. Kearly all others sleep the last 
sleep. At the time Mr. Chandler entered the Senate excite- 
ment ran high over the repeal of the once famous Missouri 
compromise, and the great contest relating to slavery in the 
TeiTitories was soon fought out between the friends of free- 
dom and oppression. 

In this conflict Mr. Chandler stood boldly up for the fun- 
damental rights of man, and was a fit representative of his 
great liberty-loving constituency. The continuous eighteen 
years of Mr. Chandler's senatorial career were years fraught 
with momentous events, and were the most eventful years in 
American history. It was during these years that the bond- 
men were made fi-ee, that the nation was saved, the Union re- 
stored, and liberty preserved to the American jjeople. It was 
during these years that the rights of man were more firmly 
guaranteed by amendments to the fundamental law of the 
laud. It was during the later years of Mr. Chandler's life 
that the financial credit and the integrity and honor of the 
nation were at stake ; when demagogues sought to build up a 
political organization uj)on their country's shame. In the set- 
tlement of all these great questions, the vote and voice of the 
late Senator truly represented the patriotic sentiment of the 
people of his State. In October, 1875, Mr. Chandler was 
chosen by President Grant as one of his constitutional ad- 
visers, and placed at the head of the Interior Department, 
where he remained until March 4, 1877. His appointment, at 



LIFE AND CnAEACTER OP ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 99 

first, did not meet with the commendation of the self assumed 
high-toned theoretical politicians of his party; but when he 
passed over the Interior Department to his successor, the peo- 
ple and press of all parties vied with each other in commending 
the manner in which he had conducted the duties of his oflSce. 
He demonstrated by practical experience that lie was the best 
reformer of the civil service who chose his assistants and em- 
ployes because of their practical knowledge of the duties they 
were selected to perform, rather than he who selected them 
because they succeeded in answering questions relating to mat- 
ters which in no manner pertained to their ofiScial duties. As 
Secretary of the Interior he purified that Department of the 
Government, and showed an executive talent surpassed by no 
one who had filled the position. 

Upon the resignation of Senator Christiancy in the spring of 
1879, Mr. Chandler, as is well known, was chosen by the 
Legislature of Michigan to fill the vacancy caused by such 
resignation. In his long official life his great executive and 
business abUity, his industry and strict integrity, have met 
the highest commendation of the press and people of all i>ar- 
ties. No one has ever been bold enough to charge Zacha- 
eiah Chandler with corruption or peculation in office. Sen- 
ator Chandler was in many respects truly a great man. He 
was not great in his style of oratory; he was not great in his 
classical learning or in his knowledge of the sciences, but he 
was great, powerfully great, in his knowledge of men. He 
was one who could mold public opinion and assimilate the 
judgment of men, and such a man is truly great. He was 
a leader of men ; he drew about him in his political councils 
not only the aged, but the young, the vigorous, and active; .he 
was a man of the people and fiom the people, and herein lay 
his strength. In his notions he was practical. His language 



100 ADDRESS OF MR. BREWER ON THE 

was plain, and his ideas were clear and always forcibly ex- 
picssed. There never could be any misapprehension as to 
which side of a business or political question he was on. Mr. 
Cttandler was a partisan, but he was first of all a patriot. 
While he held his country above party, yet he firmly believed 
that the stability of the nation and the political equality and 
welfare of our people depended upon the success of the party 
he so faithfully labored for and loved so well. He was bold, 
fearless, and aggressive in his language and demeanor; he 
was uncompromising in his utterances, and never shrank from 
characterizing offenses in their true light. Had he been less 
fearless he might at times have excused his language by utter- 
ing words spoken by another: 

• Judge me not ungentle, 
Of manners rude, and violent of speech, 
If when the pubhc safety is iu question 
Jly zeal flows warm and eager from my tongue. 

But he made no ajiologies. He preferred to leave his coun- 
trymen to judge his words and motives from his patriotic acts. 
Mr. Chandler was a positive man. He threw the whole 
power of his intellect against that which he believed to be 
wrong, and he never wavered in his struggle to ijromote right 
and advance truth and justice. He was i>ossessed of great 
energy and great mental and physical powers, and he never 
doubted his ability to accomplish that which he set out to per- 
form. He adopted the motto of another: "Attempt the end 
and never stand to doubt." If we look back over the pages 
of the world's historj- we will find that the men of the mold 
of Mr. Chandler, men that were positive, aggressive, bold 
and fearless in the right, were the men who came to the front 
in advancing the great principles of poUtical and religious 
liberty. Mr. Chandler above all was an honest man, in ofii- 



LIFE AND CnARACTER OF ZACnARIAH CHANDLER. 101 

ciiil as well as private life. He was plain in his dress and sim- 
l)le iu his habits. He was generous with his means and the 
friend of the needy and unfortunate, and thousands of sucli 
in his adopted city dropped a tear over his bier as they viewed 
Ill's manly form in death. He was a firm believer iu the integ- 
rity of the American people, and during the i^olitical cam- 
paign of 1878 he took the strongest ground in favor of main- 
taining our national credit. He asserted that after mature 
reflection the American people would no more think of repu- 
diating the nation's obligations than they would think of sub- 
mitting to a dissolution of the Union itself, and he gave this 
fact as an illustration of the integrity of our peojile. He said, 
during the late war, while he was iu Washington, that he 
loaned to our soldiers several thousands of dollars, in small 
sums of from two to ten dollars to each, but that the whole 
amount was repaid to him with the exception of about $10, 
and he was satisfied that the poor men who owed him that 
small amount had given their lives for their country. 

Mr. Speaker, during the three short years that I have had 
the honor of a seat in this body, very many of our desks have 
been draped iu mourning. Our legislative associates have 
fallen all around us. ISTot only the small in stature and the 
l)hysically weak, but those who seemed to stand like mighty 
oaks in the forest, have been stricken down by the icy hand of 
death. Surely " God moves in a mysterious way." 

When we separated and went to our homes last summer no 
one seemed more likely to return in the vigor of health and 
strength than he for whom we mourn to-day, but as a great 
political contest in which he had taken an active part was 
about to close, he slept. His popularity was never so great as 
on the day of his death. He had become a recognized leader 
of his party, and his words gave strength and wisdom to an 



102 ADDRESS OF MR. ROBESON ON THE 

aggressive host. It will be hard to fill his place in the councils 
of the nation or in the leadership of his party. 

Mr. Speaker, I first became acquainted with Mr. Chandler 
in 1856, and he was then known by the familiar name of " Old 
Zach," yet he was under forty-three years of age. For the last 
twelve years of his life I knew him intimately, personally, and 
politically, and our relations were very friendly. 

Sir, I feel that the nation has lost a patriotic statesman, his 
State its most illustrious citizen, and he who speaks to you a 
noble friend. But Zaohariah Chandler is gone. In the 
beautiful " Elmwood," on the banks of a mighty river, his 
friends laid him to rest, where his ashes will mingle with the 
dust of other illustrious dead. 

In common with the people of the State he served so well, 
and which honored him so greatly, and of the Nation whose 
rights, honor, and power he was such an uncompromising de- 
fender, and of the thousands of personal friends who loved 
him, we cast upon his bier the faithful tribute of affection and 
high regard, and so bid him a last farewell. 



Address of Mr. Robeson, of New Jersey. 

From rock-bound coast and rugged mountain side, from 
quiet farms and busy villages, and from her thronging cen- 
ters of culture and of trade, New England pours her eager sons 
along the path of every progress. From the elevating influ 
ence of her noble social system, from her clustering churches 
from her teeming school-houses, from her free town-meetings 
they carry the impress of their New England origin, education 
and character into every field which human ambition dares to in 
vade or human energy avails to conquer. What manner of men 



LIFE AND CHAKACTER OP ZACHAEIAH CHANDLER. 103 

they are, who, bom of Puritan stock and inheriting the energies 
and capactiies of Puritan character, develop them in the free 
air and under the boundless horizon of the prairies, and amid 
the activity and vitality of i)ioneer and frontier life, we know 
and the world is beginning to realize. Carrying with them 
everywhere the mental and moral qualities of their New Eng- 
land origin, they develop them in scenes of more intense vitality 
and amid the struggles of larger elements of natural force. 
Thus is produced a race uniting in themselves almost every 
condition of physical, intellectual, and political development ; 
a race which makes a new and mighty element of power, chal- 
lenging the attention and commanding the respect of the 
world. 

These reflections are suggested by a picture as remarkable 
as any in the history of our country, and which would not be 
possible in any other land or under different conditions of gov- 
ernment and political progress. Amid the crowd of emigrants 
who in the earlier years of the present century turned their 
backs upon home and birthplace in ijlew England to seek their 
fortunes in the growing West were two young men, born in the 
little State of New Hampshire, who both finally settled in the 
beautiful city of Detroit, which, sitting like a queen on the 
banks of its great highway, has for so many years commanded 
the trade and trafiic of the Northwest. Their stern New Eng- 
land mother had thrown off each iu turn as the northern eagle 
soaring from her eyrie shakes in mid-air her frightened fledg- 
lings from her back to try for themselves their new-grown pin- 
ions in the upward flight and dare alone the splendor and the 
danger of the sky. The elder of the two was among the ear- 
lier settlers of the northern region, a soldier in its defense, and 
a pioneer in its development. Reaching at an early period con- 
spicuous official position, his strong character and great abili- 



104 ADDRESS OF MR. ROBESON ON THE 

ties swayed to his own views the principles and the actions of 
the people among whom he lived. Representing in the Senate 
of the United States the great State of Michigan, he was for 
many years the political champion and leader of opinion in the 
Northwest. 

The other, whose recent death is the occasion of these cere- 
monies, leaving at a later period the scenes of his youth, car- 
ried with him to his adopted State the same inborn qnalities of 
energy and strength of character, enriched by the same intense 
love of his country, but molded in a diflerent school of political 
faith, develoiiing into different ideas of political policy, govern- 
ment, and progress. The one was the veteran champion and 
representative of the older democracy ; the other soon became 
a leader of the new republicanism. In the struggle of parties 
which often convulsed the State they were ever rei>resentative 
antagonists, and as one of the early fruits of the great political 
revolution which swept the Northwest, the younger was elected 
to the seat of the elder in the Senate of the United States, a 
position which he held until a very recent period, keeping in 
the hands of these two sons of New Hampshire, almost unbro- 
ken from the time of its organization, the senatorial power 
and influence of the great State of Michigan. 

For many years antagonists in political strife, rivals for po- 
litical office, and representatives of different iJolitical policy, 
the great peril which threatened their common country brought 
them at last together, and, uniting them in a common endeavor 
for its rescue and safety, engendered a jiersonal friendship 
which was broken only by the death of the elder; and to-day 
Lewis Cass and Zachariah Chandler sleep almost side by 
side beneath the soil of the great Commonwealth which they 
both loved so well, which was the scene of their political 
rivalry, and which honored each in his turn with its coulidence 



and highest trust. Their graves, like those in the old ceme- 
tery at Portland, where lie face to face the commanders of the 
Enterprise and the Boxer, cover indeed the remains of rival 
champions, but represent now quiet after strife, equality after 
rivalry, and the utter subjection of all human power to His 
will " whose mercy eudureth forever." 

The Senate of which Mr. Chandler became a member was 
as remarkable as any which has been known in the history of 
our country. The principles involved in its contests were those 
upon which depended the future character and direction of our 
Government and its influence for all time; and the men to 
whom, in the providence of God, their illustration was com- 
mitted were worthy of then- high trust. 

The political party to which he belonged was at that time 
greatly in the minority in the Senate, and many of its members 
had, like himself, been chosen for the qualities which mark the 
courage of high convictions rather than for official or govern- 
mental experience, but like him they brought to the contest 
energy, activity, and constancy, noble impulses of duty, the 
courage of lofty ijurposes, clear conception of the ends to be 
finally reached, and a fixed determination to dare, to do, and 
to suffer all that might be necessary for their accomplishment. 

It would not become the occasion to recount the many strug- 
gles, trials, and triumphs of that great contest ; it is sufficient 
now to say that Mr. Chandler brought to the side of his 
imrty the most valuable and decisive qualities of mind and 
heart. Vigorous and energetic, yet thoughtful and astute; 
of large views, yet with clear conceptions ; of liberal ideas, 
yet with fixed principles; of high aspirations, yet with con- 
centrated purposes — these were qualities born on New Eng- 
land soil indeed, but developed on broader fields and amid the 
struggle of more elemental forces. A heart open as day to 



14 



lOG ADDRESS OP MB. ROBESON ON THE 

every mauly sympathy ; a steadfastness which did not jield, 
and a foith which never faltered ; a simplicity which told of 
honor, and a conrage which was born of freedom — these were 
qualities of heart which belonged to the man himself, which 
enshrined him in the love of friends, and took hold on the 
affections of the people. 

During the whole period of our acquaintance, my own asso- 
ciation with Mr. Chandler was intimate, close, and confiden- 
tial. Of his senatorial career I need not speak further; his 
record is written on the pages of his country's history. But of 
the closer and more confidential relations of Cabinet life and 
duty in which we were associated together I may bear special 
testimony. There, as everywhere, he exhibited the highest 
qualities of character and of heart ; he was at once liberal to 
every person, just to every interest, and constant to every 
duty ; his every action was honor and all his endeavors were 
for the right ; and each day he grew more and more in the love 
and in the respect of his chief and of his associates. 

In the fullness of his strength, in the plenitude of his influ- 
ence, in the richest development of his faculties, clad with the 
regalia of a nation's confidence, and covered with love as with 
a garment, he has fallen in the night, and the scenes which 
once knew him so well will know him no more forever. The 
successes to which he contributed will endure for others, 
but the mind enriched and developed, the enlightened heart, 
and the elevated spirit which achieved them are lost to his 
country and his friends just as, equipped and trained for 
severer struggles, the veteran turned to new conquests. Here 
we must pause ; we can go no further. This is the " be-all and 
the end-all here"; beyond is "the undiscovered country, from 
whose bourn no traveler returns"; but here is the moral and 
a lesson : Life is far too short to realize to man more than the 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OP ZACHARTAH CHANDLER. 107 



merest possibilities of his nature. The heart is full of aspira- 
tions, and the mind of possibilities which are not, which can- 
not be, realized in this world. At each step which we take for- 
ward we see nearer and clearer the far-off goals, toward which 
the spirit aspires, but which human ambition may never reach, 
but, like the stafs which shine down the long avenues of 
heaven, their endless line of "lights on lights beyond" tells 
Uke i)rophecy the immortal destiny of man. 



Address of Mr. BuRROWS, of Michigan. 

Mr. Speaker : Conscious as I am of the exalted place Sen- 
ator Chajntdler held in the hearts of the people whom I have 
the honor in part to represent, I should feel that I had disre- 
garded the wishes of my immedate constituents should I per- 
mit this occasion to pass without attempting to give expression 
to their high appreciation of his character and their profound 
sense of irreparable loss. 

I am not apprehensive, sir, that I shall expose myself to the 
imputation of fulsome eulogy of the dead, or unjust detraction 
from the merits of the living, by declaring that no citizen of 
Michigan stood higher in the public regard, or could by his 
death have so distm-bed the public repose, as the distinguished 
Senator whose sudden demise has given occasion for this solemn 
observance. That he occupied a foremost place in the State's 
esteem is evidenced by the prolonged and illustrious service to 
which her partiality repeatedly called him ; that he is sincerely 
lamented is attested by the manifestations of public and pri- 
vate grief attending his imposing obsequies. 

The qualities of head and heart which thus endeared him to 
the people of Michigan were so conspicuous that they readily 



108 ADDRESS OF MR. BURROWS ON THE 

suggest themselves to every one familiar with his public 
career, for the prominent and distinguished featiu-es of his 
character were so pronounced that they could be neither dis- 
guised nor misunderstood. 

Chiefest among these was his unchallenged honesty. Hold- 
ing, for a quarter of a century, some of the most responsible 
positions in the gift of his State and the nation, whether par- 
ticipating in the legislation of the country or in the adminis- 
tration of its laws, his course was ever marked by the same 
unswerving integrity. Provoking, as he did, by his pro- 
nounced partisanship the fiercest assaults of his political an- 
tagonists, yet no adversary was ever bold enough to attack 
his official integrity or impugn his personal honor. 
' ITor would he brook dishonesty in others. It is said that, 
when Secretary of the Interior, becoming satisfied that a cer- 
tain bureau in that department needed thorough renovation, 
he sent for the head of the di\ision and directed the immedi- 
ate dismissal of twelve of his most prominent subordinates. 
The chief of the bureau expostulated with the Secretary and 
tiually declared that it would be impossible to transact the 
business of his department without their assistance. " Very 
well, sir," replied the Secretary, " then the business of your 
department ^vill be suspended; for unless you make these 
removals by four o'clock this afternoon, that branch of the 
public service will be closed." It is needless to add that 
the orders of the Secretary were immediately executed and 
the subordinates discharged. 

If it be true that " an honest man is the noblest work of 
God," then Zachariah Chandler was one of nature's mas- 
ter-pieces. 

" He never sold the riijld to serve the hour," 
Or paltered with eternal truth for power. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACIIARIAH CHANDLER. 109 



Then, again, he was a man of matchless courage. Positive 
in his convictions, he was bold in their advocacy. His course 
of action once determined upon, supported by an approving 
conscience, no fear of popular disfavor or personal discomfiture 
could swerve him from his fixed purpose. No matter what the 
emergency, he was always equal to it. Where others doubted, 
he was confident ; where others faltered, he was immovable ; 
wliere others queried, he afiQrmed. Whether engaged in pre- 
serving the nation's life or sustaining the national credit, 
whether in the Senate or in the Cabinet, he was the same fear- 
less, intrepid leader. There was no error, however popular, he 
would not assail — uo truth, however despised, he would not 
champion. As illustrative of his indomitable courage in great 
emergeucies, it is related of him that immediately after the 
battle of Bull Eun, when the Eepublic seemed totteriug to its 
downfall, he called upon the President to advise with him in 
relation to the exigencies of the hour. Mr. Lincoln was in 
despair, and met Mr. Chandler with the exclamation : " The 
country is lost! what shall we do?" "Do?" responded the 
stalwart Senator, " call immediately for three hundred thou- 
sand volunteers." " But will the people respond ?" questioned 
the Executive. " Yes, sir, if you were to make it a million." 
And it is said that he never quit the executive chamber until 
he bore the order from Mr. Lincoln to Secretary Stanton direct- 
ing the summons. He was one of the few public men who, in 
the consideration of great questions, not only had positive con- 
victions, but the moral courage to avow them, regardless alike 
of public opinion or personal consequences. It mattered not 
how popular a measure might be, or how much its advocacy 
might enhance the chances of party success. Senator Chandler 
never yielded his convictions for a momentary advantage. It 
mattered not how exalted any man might be in the public re- 



110 ADDRESS OF MR. HAWLEY ON 1 HE 

gard, if Senator Chandler believed him unworthy of the ad- 
vancement he would not hesitate to assail him. And he never 
resorted to temporary expetlients to achieve temporary suc- 
cess or allay popular clamor. 

Uupracticed be to fawu or seek for power 
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour. 

And, finally, he was faithful to every public duty and true 
to his friends. Treachery found.no place in his character. He 
never betrayed a public trust or a personal friend. 

Fortunate will we be if it can be said of us when we are 
gone, as it can be truthfully declared of him : He was an hon- 
est public servant, a fearless champion of the right, and a 
faithful friend. 



Address of Mr. Hawley, of Connecticut. 

I gladly take a few moments to manifest my sorrow for 
the death of Mr. Chandler, and my high respect for the 
many pronounced and praiseworthy elements of his charac- 
ter. It was a frank, brave, manly, strong nature. Whatever 
he loved he loved indeed; when he hated at aU he blazed. 
When he enlisted for a cause he gave it his soul and mind and 
body. He furnishes an eminent example among a multitude 
of men stalwart in all things — physical, mental, and moral — 
who have swarmed westward for a century and built up an 
empire. He carried with him the traditions of his New En- 
gland home. His force and good judgment bore him upward 
in business; his honesty secured him abundant trust and con- 
fidence ; his public spirit compelled him to enter public Mfe. 
He rejoiced in the inspirations of cortflict, and had a righteous 
contempt for neutrals. " Some say there is a God ; some say 
there is no God." Jlr. Chandler would never have said. 



LIFE AND CHAEACTER OF ZACHAKIAH CHANDLER. Ill 

"the truth lies between the two extremes." A man once 
prominent in American letters and politics, who failed to 
secure the success in public life to which his intellectual abili- 
ties api^arently entitled him, described, as lessening his avail- 
ability for political leadership, his irresistible tendency to see 
in the strongest light the arguments and sentiments of his op- 
ponents, and to permit his vigor of action to be modified ac- 
cordingly. Mr. Chandler never suffered through any such 
weakness. He was never in danger of being turned into a 
pUlar of salt. 

Willing enough to concede that his opponents might be sin- 
cere, he would rejoice in that sincerity as giving promise of a 
finer battle. It would never have occurred to him that it 
ought to save them from defeat. 

His roughness and readiness provoked criticism. Men more 
scholarly, judicial, deliberate, and many-sided, and by reason 
thereof often less valuable in times of stormy action, were apt 
to undervalue Mr. Chandler. But his advice and judgment 
were sound in the startling crisis of war, and, while it was not 
a surprise to those who really knew him, it was a great satis- 
faction to see him become in time of peace a Secretary of the 
Interior, pointed to as a model of integrity and vigor. 

His opponents made a common mistake in deeming the 
sledge-hammer combatant lacking in the graces of friendshiii. 
He hated many things; I do not think he hated any man. 
He had lived through enough of rude conflict in private and 
public to know that we may judge opinions and principles 
by the light we have, but should estimate men by the light 
they have. 

All the time he lived he was indeed a live man. And 
though he be dead, the magnetism of his nature is here to- 
day, and will be felt for generations. 



112 ADDEESS OF MR. BUNNELL ON THE 



Address of Mr. Bunnell, of Minnesota. 

Mr. Speaker : The late Senator Chandler attained polit- 
ical eminence and secured the admiration of the American 
people because he had and exhibited in action some of the best 
traits of an attractive human character. He had intejjrity, 
honesty, patriotism, boldness, and moral bravery. These qnal- 
ities were the pillars u^jon which, in a large degree, rested his 
national fame. They gave him success in each great theater 
of his life. 

When his remains awaited burial in the city of Detroit, his 
feUow-citizens, in large numbers and irrespective of partj', in 
their unanimously adopted resolutions, made conspicuous these 
shining characteristics. His honesty, his uprightness, his un- 
corruptedness in the transactions of life were in daily play, and 
came to be the universally conceded qualities of the man. 

This animating and controlling principle greatly augmented, 
without doubt, the force of those other traits to which refer- 
ence has been. made. He did not jield to the temptations 
which come to men willing to acquire gain and place by the 
use of deceptive and otherwise unworthy methods. As he 
hated fraud, he demanded a clean record, a full exjiosure of 
all the motives which shai^ed and impelled the actions of men. 
His denunciations of men who in action were not what their 
professions would make them, were signally severe. For such 
men, he had no excuses. If he was intolerant, his honesty 
made him so. There was no sham in this great distinguishing 
element in his character. It was firmly rooted and unceas- 
ingly operative. It did not leave him when he passed from 
private into public life. During his eighteen years of service 
in the Senate of the United States, much of it opening paths 
to personal profit, which touched and hiut other men, he made 



LLFE AND CHAEACTER OF ZACHARIAn CHANDLER. 113 

sucL a record for honesty, in its largest signification, that it 
left in the background and to be forgotten forever whatever of 
faults, if any, may have touched his personal character. 

After a short retirement from the Senate, he became the Sec- 
retary of the Interior. He was exempt from assaults at no 
period in his political career. They were renewed when he 
returned to Washington to assume the duties of an executive 
oflicer and take his place in the Cabinet of President Grant. 
• These attacks, however, never reached his integrity. If they 
had been made with that view, he could have used the words 
of Shakespeare and said : 

There is no terror in your threats : 
For I am arm'd so strong in honesty, 
That they pass by mo as the idle wind, 
Which I respect not. 

If the history of the lamented Senator be written, no pages in 
it will be brighter or more illustrative of the man than those 
which shall set forth the thorough and needed reforms which 
he wrought in the Department of the Government over which 
he presided. Civil service with him had an honest meaning. 
It must have its illustration in the full labor of men loyal to 
the Government and competent to do the work assigned them. 
He hated civil service rules, because in their practical opera- 
tion they were too often a cheat. Not long had he served in 
this new capacity before there came from every quarter the 
free and hearty acknowledgment that he possessed executive 
and administrative abilities of a high order. 

The congressional legislation of 1854 brought the subject of 
our eulogies from his comparative obscurity and led the way to 
his long and eventful public career. The republican party 
was born of that legislation. In the formation of the party he 
took an early and conspicuous part. In after years, and indeed 



15 o 



114 ADDRESS OF MR. DT'NNELL ON THE 

till bis death, he was lu it a wise aud sagacious adviser aud 
supporter. His consummate ability iu party organization kept 
him for many years at the head of the national republican 
committee. 

The repeal of the Missouri compromise he regarded as a 
blow aimed at the life of the nation. This act aroused into 
the intensest activity his sublime love of the Union. From 
this hour his voice was heard. The directness and severity 
with which he spoke of measures which he deemed hostile to 
the public good may be charged to his ardent love of country. 
He was an extreme partisan because he sincerely believed his 
party alone could save and best serve the Eepublic. He did 
not think it possible to save it by any other political organiza- 
tion or agency. His uncompromising devotion to the Union 
would not suffer him to consider for an horn- any terms of 
comijromise or conciliation. The sincerity and honesty of his 
motives were never questioned by those who knew him. His 
vast labors for the Government during the war, and the sol- 
diers who were standing against its enemies, were inspired 
by a deep and generous patriotism, ^o man will do him jus- 
tice who does not credit to it all he did and sacrificed for it 
when its life was in peril. His words were indeed barbed, but 
his nature would not suffer the coinage of any other. 

I have said, Mr. Speaker, that one of the marked traits in 
the Senator's character was his boldness. His honestj' made 
it impossible for him to evade or conceal. He did not hesitate 
at any time or in any place to utter his convictions or use 
right names. He spoke as he felt. Words with him were put 
to their legitimate use. Frankness marked the man and was 
the offspring of his honesty. He said what he thought the 
occasion required. It would not have been jiossible for him 
to do less and be himself. He was rugged iu conviction and 



LIFE AND CHAEACTER OF ZACHARIAn CHANDLElt. 115 

ill utterance. His speeches iu tbe Senate during the extra 
session of last year were charged with the severest denuncia- 
tions, for they came of the views which he had entertained 
concerning the war and its chief actors. He could not have 
made them otherwise. 

It may be said that the Senator, though sincere, was ex- 
treme and daring, yet such a man is safer iu the councils of a 
nation than a timid man, for the latter is quite certain to sur- 
render his whole cause when some crisis is reached and when 
the highest order of courage is the stern necessity of the hour. 
The brave man will never deceive either friend or foe. 

The last speeches of Senator Chandlek in the Senate 
brought him invitations to address the people in many States 
of the Union. He spoke many times iu Ohio, Maine, Massa- 
chusetts New York, Wisconsin, and Illinois durmg the months 
of August, September, and Octobei'. Vast crowds greeted 
him wherever he spoke. The masses loved his dii'ectuess of 
speech. They honored him for what he was and what he said. 
Faneuil Hall resounded with the loud and long applause 
which followed his words. His reception in every place was 
an ovation. 

Turning his face homeward, he reached the city of (Jliicago 
on the 31st of October. Here, when the echoes of his last 
eloquent appeal to the thousands who here so euthusiastic- 
allj' heard him, had scarcely died away, the spirit of the bold 
Senator, the incorruptible statesman and the earnest patriot, 
took its flight. Here ended a life grandly useful and heroic. 
Tbis generation cannot forget its greatness, and coming gen- 
erations will admire its singular devotion to the Republic. 



116 ADDRESS OP ME. STONE ON THE 

Address of Mr. Stone, of Michigan. 

Mr. Speakee: In tlie death of Zachariah Chandlbu a 
great political party Las lost one of its recoguized leaders, 
aud the nation one of her most distinguished sons. His life 
and acts have been interwoven with the history and progress 
of the State of Michigan and of this nation during the last 
twenty -five years. 

The life of Senator Chandler adds another name to that 
long list of men in this country who, by dint of persevering 
application and energy, have raised themselves from the 
lower ranks of industry to eminent positions of usefulness 
and influence in the nation. The presidential chair and the 
Halls of Congress have contained many such self-raised 
men — fitting representatives of the industrial character of 
the American people — and it is to the credit of our institii- 
tions that such men have received due recognition and honor 
at the hands of the people. 

Mr. Chandler's education was limited to that of the com- 
mon schools and an academy of his native State, New Hamp- 
shire. 

In 1833, at the age of twenty years, he removed to the city 
of Detroit, and soon after engaged in the mercantile business, 
in which he was very successful. 

His public life began by his election to the office of mayor 
of his adopted city in the year 1851. He was in 1852 brought 
prominently before the people of Michigan as the whig candi- 
date for governor. Although the contest was a hopeless one 
he made a spii'ited and energetic canvass, and established a 
prestige in the State which he ever afterward enjoyed. From 
this time to the day of his death Mr. Chandler took an 
active interest in the politics of his adopted State and the 



LIFE AND CHAEACTER OF ZACHARTAH CHANDLEK. 117 

nation. In the winter of 1856-'57 he was elected to the 
United States Senate, to succeed Lewis Cass, being the first 
repubUcan Senator from Michigan. 

In the Senate he took hold of his work with the same 
energy and directness that had characterized him as a suc- 
cessful merchant and business man. He saw the coming 
greatness of the Northwest and devoted himself chiefly to 
the commerce and industries of the lake region, becoming so 
thoroughly acquainted with the subject that he was soon con- 
sidered an authority on all questions touching the interests or 
development of that part of the country. 

He especially demanded for the Northwest a place on the 
Committee on Commerce in the Senate, a committee of which 
he was afterward chairman for so many years. It is said that 
the first bill he ever presented was one to improve the Saint 
Clair Flats by deepening the channel over them. This bill, 
and his next to deepen Saint Mary's River, he pushed with 
that untiring energy which marked his coiu'se afterward in 
such matters. During the debate in the Senate on the Saint 
Clair bill Mr. Chandler said, " I want to see who is friendly 
to the great Northwest and who is not, for we are about 
making our last prayer here. The time is not fiir distant 
when, instead of coming here and begging for our rights, we 
shall extend our hands and take the blessing. After ISGO we 
shall not be here as beggars." 

Time will not permit us on this occasion to follow him 
minutely in his successful career in the Senate. Long iden- 
tified with the interests and i^rosperity of Michigan, no man 
has accomplished more for her material interests than Mr. 
Chandler. Outside of political and party lines he has been 
of great service to the State, and his death is there considered 
a great calamity. He will fill an honorable page in the history 



of his couutry's struggles and triumph over human slavery. 
He hated oppression wherever he found it, and counted no 
consequence in denouncing the oppressor. 

Senator Chawdlee was a man of decided convictions and 
utterances. His boldness and frankness of speech often led 
to a misconception of his character, and made the impression 
that he was tyrannical and vindictive. His nature was emi- 
nently genial, tender, and sympathetic. He felt keenly the 
wrongs of others, and was never more outspoken than when 
defending the cause of the weak and oppressed. 

Pending the rebellion, he was loyal, hopeful, helpful, and a 
military division in himself, to help Lincoln, Grant, and Stan- 
ton. He was devoted to the Union in its hour of peril. His 
earnest, persevering labors amid the darkest days of its trial 
and difficulty, his courage and steadfastness in the pursuit of 
his noble aims and purposes in the interest of the nation, were 
no less heroic of their kind than the bravery and devotion of 
the soldier whose duty and whose pride it was heroically to 
defend it upon the I lattle-field. No human being can accu- 
rately say how much of our final victory during war and re- 
construction was vitally and indisputably ministered by Zach- 
AKiAH Chandler. He was absolutely invincible and fearless. 
I wish to pay a brief tribute to the fearless independence of his 
character, to his integrity, his honest adherence to the principles 
which he believed to be right, to the rugged force of his talents, 
all of which made him an important element in the affairs of 
the nation diu-ing the last quarter of a century. Few men in 
this country ever wielded a stronger political influence than 
Senator Chaxdler. He was a man of firm convictions, and, 
though an ardent partisan, was just. His character was unim- 
peachable. Throughout his course of public life not even his 
bitterest opponents ever had aught to say against his honesty. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OP ZACHARIAII CnATs'DLEE. 110 



Few men have tiikeu such a firm, deep hold on the confi- 
dence and regard of the country. His sturdy patriotism and 
his uncompromising loyalty carried and captivated the popu- 
lar heart. He had something in his composition that com- 
pelled respect and confidence from the people. One of Napo- 
leon's favorite maxims was, "The truest wisdom is a resolute 
determination." If it is a blessing to be possessed of a stout 
heart, then Senator Chakdler was eminently blessed. The 
people of Michigan, and all who knew him, had unbounded 
confidence in the will-power and energy of '-Old Zaeh," as he 
was familiarly called at home. I believe it is true that it is 
not the men of genius who move the world, and take the lead 
in it, but men of steadfastness and invincible determination. 

Mr. Chandler was strong with the people because he was 
conspicuously one of the people, moved by their honest im- 
pulses, filled with their strong sense, and sharing their earnest 
convictions. There was no pretense or false show about him. 
He was brave, true, manly, square, and direct, and was never 
afraid to call things by their right names. He made no claim 
to polish or the art of rhetoric. He was a strong man, rather 
than a scholarly one; a man of great common sense; a prac- 
tical rather than a brilliant statesman. His practical sagac- 
ity, his resolute will, and great courage made him a greater 
force than many of finer polish and larger acquirements. He 
was a natural leader, and no man in our history as a State 
ever had a more faithful following. He leaves a gap which it 
will be difficult to fill. Upon the nation which honored him, 
and the State which loved him, the news of his death fell with 
great suddenness and the force of an awful shock. But he 
could not have chosen a better time to die had he been given 
the power of choice, for he went in the zenith of his fame and 
usefulness— in the midst of activity and labor, and with the 



120 ADDRESS OF MR. KEIPEE ON THE 



harness on. His last public utterances were for au honest 
government and an undivided nation. 

A widespread and public sorrow on the announcement of 
liis death attested the profound sense of the loss which the 
State of ]\Iichigan and the whole country sustained. Former 
political animosities were forgotten, and all, without distinc- 
tion of politics, creed, or nativity, seemed to feel that the State 
and nation bad lost a strong pillar. 

Let us imitate his virtues and cherish his memory. 



Address of Mr. Keifer, of Ohio. 

Mr. Speaker: If we were to call the roll of this dead who 
have fallen from the ranks of those who have mustered in this 
our country's Capitol, we should hear the names of many 
historic souls familiar to the ears of the people of all lauds, 
and not among the least of those would be found the name 
of him on whose account we meet here today to pay a last 
tribute of respect. 

My personal relations with the late Senator Zachariah 
Chandler were limited to occasional and incidental meetings 
duriug the last two years of his life. To those who knew him 
well and intimately during the many years of his long, event- 
ful, and useful life it must be left to speak of him in his social 
and family relations. But his public life and acts belong to 
the whole country; and in so far as he was the instrument 
of good to mankind ; in so far as his life was exemplary and 
worthj- of imitation ; in so far as he was a type of American 
manhood and an honor to his country and race, he belongs to 
history. 

While his life and public services may not have been sin- 



LIFE AND CHA.EACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 121 



gularly grand, they were transcendently great. It has often 
been said, with a view of detracting from individual greatness, 
that men only become great because they have lived and been 
called on to grapple with great events. It is not to be denied 
that great occasions develop great intellects and great men. 
It is also true that men who have high and responsible public 
duties cast on them, as a rule meet and discharge them, often 
to the surprise of their friends, with singular faithfulness and 
ability. But in the long and eventful period in our country's 
history through which the lamented Senator lived many strong 
men faltered, hesitated, and fell. 

The differences in men are rarely to be measured by their 
difference in natural and purely intellectual endowments; 
they consist more commonly in the differences in zeal, energy 
— physical energy— perseverance, devotion to duty, to friends 
and country, pride of success, love of honor, self-respect, high 
resolve, dauntless spirit, and, above all, a desire to do good. 
Senator Chandler possessed most if not all of these endow- 
ments, and more largely than most of the great and good men 
of the world. 

If I were compelled to name the one leading characteristic 
which he was endowed with in a higher degree than another, 
and which ruled him in private and public affairs throughout 
his useful life, I should say it was heroism. Though not a 
warrior in the period of war, his whole life was a heroic one. 
Heroes are not found alone in the fiery furnace of war ; they 
are common to the paths of peace. He possessed true heroism, 
" the self-devotion of genius manifesting itself in action." His 
was not only of that kind of heroism denoting fearlessness of 
danger, passive courage, ability to bear up under trials amid 
dangers and sufferings ; nor was it only that fortitude, brav- 
ery, and valor which is essential to those who go forth to cou- 



16 



122 ADDRESS OF JIR. KEIFER ON THE 

flict.s with liviug opponents in jjersonal mortal combat as 
duelists or in battle ; it was made up of that intrepidity and 
courage which shrinks not in the presence of appalling dan- 
gers. Senator Chandler was unpretentious, and as a hus- 
band, father, and friend was kind, patronizing, and gentle ; 
but when stormy times came his brow seemed to darken, and 
that great body of his, which apjjeared to the beholder to be 
one of the motive forces of creation, strode fearlessly to the 
front, and there by common consent held sway until all danger 
was passed. 

Many courageous men, not truly heroic, falter and fail to 
enter the lists when a conflict is imminent. Kot so the de- 
ceased Senator. He was a leader when the times or occasions 
demanded true valor. It is in the lead where men fall or are 
sacrificed. The leaders in charging a foe are the most con- 
spicuous marks, and they are the first to receive the manly 
fire of bold enemies and often the cowardly arrows of hiding 
foes in the rear, not uufrequently springing from the bow of 
envy or jealousy. 

He escaped in a singular degree, and died in old age with 
his armor on. In a successful civil as in a successful military 
life — and in the eyes of an often nndiscriminatiug public suc- 
cess in either is the only test of true greatness — it is easier to 
be led to scenes where honor and glory are won than to be one 
of the few who lead there. 

In the bloody conflicts of war the percentage of those who 
cannot, if well commanded, meet the actual conflict of battle 
with a good show of courage is very small indeed, yet the 
large mass of men are physical cowards. Mr. Chandler had 
no element of cowardice in him. He was always a natural 
leader. 

As a business man he sought out a comi}aratively new State 



LIFE AND CnAHACTEU OF ZACnAlUAlI CHANDLER, ll 



and attained success by foresight, energy, and enterprise. 
He left a large fortune. This same foresight, energy, and 
enterprise he carried with him throughout his public life. He 
was devoted to his friends and magnanimous to his foes, but 
not to the latter until he was sure they were conquered. 

As a political leader he was known to be a violent partisan. 
This came from his having no half-way convictions of duty 
and right. When he had work to do he struck heavy blows. 
He did not lightly tap a nail on the head to start it on its 
course, but drove it home at a single blow. He was said to 
be uncompromising in his character. This was unjust to him, 
save in all matters where his country or principle was involved. 
He was honest, and integrity in private and public afiairs was 
a pole-star for his guidance. He may have erred, and doubt- 
less did, in many things. It is only human to err. His impet- 
uous and fiery natui-e may have sometimes caused him to go 
astray, but he was willing to make amends for any wrong 
he had done to another when in his power. 

Like all positive men who come prominently upon the stage 

of Ufe, he had not friends alone, but violent enemies. But 

like a giant oak that withstands the tornadoes as well as the 

gentler winds for a century, and grows stronger and firmer in 

its fiber, Senator Chandler grew in mental and moral stature 

by reason of the violence of his foes. He, like the oak, could 

not have flourished alone in the sunshine of life. He needed, 

if he did not deserve, its stormy days to prepare hiiu for his 

high destiny. It has been said by another who had to bear 

more than seemed to be his share of violent opposition, " that 

he could as Uttle afford to spare his enemies as his friends." 

They fitted and quahfied him for better and nobler duties. 

Mr. Chandler's body and mind were alike of the rugged, not 

to say rough, cast. 



124 ADDRESS OP MR. KEEPER ON THE 

His light, though not such as would be called in high lit- 
erary circles brilliant, yet it burned fiercely, reaching on occa- 
sions a white heat, in the presence of which his opponents 
withered. In debate he was fearlessly outspoken. He could 
take as well as give herculean blows. Better men may have 
lived than plain old Zachabiah Chaj^dlek, but none ex- 
celled him in love of country or of his fellow-men. For sub- 
terfuge and dodging he had a brave man's scorn. He always 
spoke his mind and acted boldly up to his convictions. He 
was for war when peace no longer seemed possible. As early 
as 1860 he gave it as his opinion that " a little blood-letting 
would be good for the body politic." He was then for war, 
and in the national halls of legislation he gave his voice and 
votes for its rigorous prosecution. 

He believed in the flat of the emancipation which made 
l)lain Abe Lincoln's name immortal. It has been said that he 
was indiscreet, boisterous, and headstrong. So far as this 
may have been true it was because he had in great affairs 
absolutely no nonsense about him. As a political enemy of 
his has said, " He went straight for the thing in sight, and 
generally came off with it." 

His warm and generous nature would not allow him to be- 
tray a friend or thrust an enemy in the back. If throughout 
his whole career his life was not one in all respects to be imi- 
tated by the young men of the country, it cannot be said that 
he corrupted them. 

It was my fortune to meet him for a day near the close of 
his life. He was then on duty for a cause in which his heart 
and soul were enlisted, and in that cause he died. He had 
then entered upon his last campaign. It was bounded by no 
State lines. He addressed the peojde in Ohio on the political 
issues which he deemed vital to them ; he flew from place to 



LIFE AND CHARACTEE OP ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. lliS 

place rapidly, aud was gone, and the " talking lightning " told 
us he was in the distant State of Massachusetts, and thunder- 
ing his plain but convincing speech in Faneuil Hall to the 
learned men of Boston. We heard of him elsewhere in that 
State aud iu the State of New York ; then came the news that 
he was in the far Northwest — the State of Wisconsin — poiuing 
livid, convincing arguments out to our people. The morning 
papers announced that he was to address the assembled multi- 
tudes in that magic, wondrous city of Chicago on the night of 
October 31, 1879. 

The early papers on the next day gave us his speech, but 
with it came the startling announcement — Zach. Chandler 
is dead ! Strong men and women mourned. His friends and 
foes stood dazed in the presence of the sad tidings. They did 
not know how to contemplate him from the stand-point of 
death. He died as a hero might wish to die — like a plumed 
knight "booted and spurred." It is fitting that here in these 
halls that knew him so long we should pay him a last tribute 
and shed copious tears to his memory. As we contemplate 
him dead— in his final chamber of repose — in the poet's lan- 
guage we may truthfully say : 

Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells, 

Here grow no damned grudges ; here are no storms. 

No noise ; hut silence and eternal sleep. 



Address of Mr. CoNGER, of Michigan. 

Mr. Speaker : The name and fame of Zachariah Chaj^- 
DLER, of Michigan, needs no heralding iu this House, in this 
Congress, in this nation. None is more fiimiliar to the Ameri- 
can i>eople ; none ever more honored by the citizens of his own 
State. 



126 ADDRESS OF ME. CONGER ON THE 

Those of us who speak of him to-day briug our loving 
tliough mournful tribute to his memory as we pay the last 
olficial honors to one who served so long and so well in the 
Congress of the nation. 

I may not here recall the long years of my personal friend- 
ship and regard, nor shall I venture to give expression to the 
emotions which crowd upon me as I remember the obligations 
of friendship, of kindness and encouragement which have as- 
sisted my public labors and been so pleasant in my private 
Ufe. 

Nor do I design to give even a sketch of the private or 
public life of the distinguished statesman and patriot whose 
uutimely death we deplore. 

Others, here and elsewhere, will better perform that sacred 
duty, and gather together the abundant material furnished by 
tliree-score years of an eventful life to instruct, enlighten, and 
gratify the people whom he served so long and so well. 

If I am i^ermitted to refer to some scenes and events of his 
life, not so likely to be mentioned by others — to allude to some 
remembrances of circumstances which he himself in private 
conversation has spoken of as influencing his life and forming 
his character, I shall perhaps furnish some little aid to those 
who desire to know the ijeculiarities of his life and analyze 
the motives of his action. 

Chandler was born December 10, 1813, in the time of our 
second national struggle, and the earliest impression of his 
childhood and the first lessons around the New England fire- 
side were colored by the intense patriotism which frontier life 
and border warfare had imparted to those who had been alike 
ready to fight the other States in behalf of the Hampshire 
grants, and the rest of the world in behalf of the rights of the 
nation. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER UF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 127 

At the age of tweuty he left the granite hills and the beau- 
tiful valleys of his native State to find a field of labor and the 
chances of fortune in the then far West. He brought little 
with him but energy, resolution, and that Puritan integrity 
natural to his race and unsullied through his life. 

In the first flush of youth, hopeful, ambitious, undisciplined, 
he left the land of steady habits, settled customs, and a homo- 
geneous people, to dwell in a region and among a people as 
unlike his own as could be found on the continent. 

Michigan from 1G12 to 1760 had been a part of New France, 
ruled, under French laws, by French governors, and in all re- 
spects a French people; from 1700 till 1787 under English 
governors and English laws ; and till 1835 under various ter- 
ritorial governments. 

In 1833 the whole population, French, English, and Ameri- 
can, was about sixty thousand, and Detroit, the chief city and 
capital, less than ten thousand. To such a territory and city 
in 1833, at the age of twenty years, came Zachariah Chan- 
dler to dwell among that mixed people thenceforward while 
he should live on earth. 

I should love to linger over this transition period of his life, 
among the scenes and incidents and personages and events 
that molded and fashioned that tall, awkward, wondering, res- 
olute White Mountain boy — then and before and afterward and 
always called Zach — into the merchant prince, the rich capi- 
talist, the shrewd politician, the successful statesman, the un- 
swerving patriot, and, better and nobler than all, the fearless 
advocate and bold defender of all the free institutions of his 
native land and of the rights and liberties of all the dwellers 
therein. 

I would be gratified if I might embody in this grateful trib- 
ute to the memory of a friend with whom I have been familiar 



128 ADDRESS OF MR. CONGER ON THE 

for more tLan a third of a century some record of his hopes 
and ambitions, his thoughts and retlections, his plans and 
struggles, from the hour when he stood a stranger in the old- 
fashioned City of the Straits till tliat evening when, amid the 
shouts and applause of many thousand citizens of a wonderful 
city beyond the lakes, unnamed and unknown in those days 
of his early manhood, he retired weary and secretly stricken 
to his chamber, and when, alone — 

Nor wife, uor child, 
Nor one of all his myriad friends, 
To bid his parting soul farewell, 

his great spirit quit the familiar scenes of earth, and through 
the upper air, still vibrating with the applause of those who 
had just listened to his last thrilling words, sought rest in the 
unknown realms of immortal life ! 

Mr. Speaker, we have all an inward consciousness that 
'■Hime and place and circumstance''^ are but the common names 
of those mysterious powers and influences and agencies that 
rule within and around us, to mold and fashion our mortal 
life; that, under the Divine economy, our nature, ever strug 
gling with powers and i)riucipalities, with things seen and 
unseen, with right and wrong, with truth and error, with jus- 
tice and oppression, is constantly and imperceptibly changed 
and fashioned and molded by all our earthly associations. 

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Eough-hew them how we will. 

In 1833, when this youthful wanderer made his home in 
Detroit, all was strange, and new, and wonderful. The quaint 
old city — the French hahitans, gay, vivacious, exclusive; the 
old English families, proud, phlegmatic, reserved, not yet 
reconciled to their lost dominion; the remnants of Indian 
tribes whose fathers, if they did not themselves, remembered 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 129 



Pontiac, and Bloody Eun, aud Brownstowu, aud Tecumseh, 
and Hull's surrender, and the Thames, and who traversed the 
trails and portages, and floated on the waters, and traveled 
over laud once all their own, and who lingered continually 
about theu- favorite old home on the straits; hunters and trap- 
pers and fishermen gathered there ; voyageurs who knew every 
coast and every portage to "far-off Athabasca" crowded the 
shores and loitered around in sad indolence as they heard the 
rushing sound of steam and saw the mysterious vessels that, 
without sail or paddle, usurped their dt)miuion and occupa- 
tion; sailors were there who had fought with Perry on the 
waters below; fur-traders who had brought thither their treas- 
ures from imknown mountaius and plains ; immigrants gath- 
ering from all the world ; merchants from the interior and far- 
off West. But time would fail to give more than a passing 
glance at the scenes and associations into which our advent- 
urer was plunged, and amidst which his character was to be 
formed, his energy to be tested, his triumpli to be gained. 

Amid such scenes he must, of course, be earnest, resolute, 
almost aggressive. He must be inquiring, thoughtful, decided. 
He must be just and honorable in all his intercourse with this 
varied and peculiar population. He must be fearless aud un- 
cringing with the supercilious, and haughty, affable, and cor- 
dial with his equals and friends, and bold in defense of the 
weak, else he would long since have gone down among the for- 
gotten and unknown. 

And, such, indeed were the elements of his character, pre- 
dominating over all faults and foibles, illustrating many pecu- 
liarities, offensive to his opponents and sometimes incompre- 
hensible to his friends. 

I have not the time, on this occasion, to illustrate the differ- 
ent phases of his- character from actual events in his life. His 



17 o 



130 ADDRESS OF ME. CONGER ON THE 

houesty and personal integrity have never been assailed or 
questioned. 

I^^ever in the varied transactions of mercantile or commer- 
cial life has his good name been tarnished. In the fever heat 
of political warfare no charge of corruption has pointed to 
him. 

There was a time in the late political contest when his pride 
and ambition and the crowning wish of his life looked to a re- 
turn to his long-honored place in the Senate, when he was told 
secretly by an old and trusted friend that if he would give his 
influence to aid in seeming a certain iwlitical appointment to a 
friend of one who could secure the result he could be elected. 
With one emphatic gesture, he replied : " I have lived among 
the people of Michigan for almost half a century an honest 
man, and I will never secure my election even by a promise 
which at another time I might be willing to make voluntarily." 

Equally characteristic of the man was his celebrated letter 
to the governor of his State, so much criticised, so much ap- 
proved—the blood-letting letter, so called. 

He saw treason spreading through the land, poisoning the 
fountains of justice, invading the halls of legislation, threat- 
ening the free institutions of the country, selfish, unreasoning, 
inexorable, gathering forces for the conflict, already arming 
for the strife. 

What should he, the watchman on the tower, say to his peo- 
ple? Let the Union be destroyed? Let the Constitution be 
shattered? Surrender ignobly the inheritance to treason and 
traitors ? No. War, if it must come. Mood and life, if neces- 
sary, wealth and property and comfort and long years of strug- 
gle, but this Union must and shall be preserved. No surren- 
der to traitors! No yielding to timidity! No endurance of 
vacillation, either in court or camp! 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 131 



He spared neither high nor low, neither the head of the 
Army nor the subaltern in the field. He had the great cour- 
age to attack alone the management of the campaign and to 
change commanders. The history of his labors through the 
war will never be written. They are only partially known 
to the country, and not fully even to his friends. 

When the war was over he demanded the fruits of victory 

submission to the Government, freedom in spirit and in fact 
to the enfranchised ; absolute protection to the citizen in all 
legal and political rights wherever the flag floats ; recognition 
of the fidelity and valor of Union soldiers; confidence and 
support to the Union men of the South; suppression of vio- 
lence and anarchy and kukluxism ; no recognition or payment 
of rebel claims for losses in the war. 

On these and like subjects he could not be silent. He was 
not vindictive. He would not yield to injustice ; but, looking 
upon the shattered hearth-stones, the maimed and sufferinsr 
soldier, and the innumerable graves of patriot citizens, he de- 
manded the results of victory, no more, no less, and that the 
great struggle should close the contest once and forever. 

Mr. Speaker, the record of his life and character will be 
more fully made up by abler hands than mine. This time and 
place permit but a glance at a few of the characteristics of 
the man. I can but feebly echo the voice of ten thousand citi- 
zens of our moiu-uing State in any expression of admiration 
for our departed statesman— of sorrow for his untimely death. 
In Michigan a million and a half of people are mourners. No 
party lines divide our citizens as we lay the tribute of respect 
upon his tomb. No citizen has died more universally known ; 
none been attended to his last resting-place with- more abound- 
ing sadness. The thousands who thronged the streets on the 
day of his funeral and endiu-ed the tempestuous winter storm 



132 ADDRESS OF MR. BRIGGS ON THE 

for hours uuiuoved, as the loug cortege uioved "with slow 
fimereiil tread " to his fiual resting-place, were but the repre- 
sentatives of millions throughout our land who cried as of 
old, " Know ye not that a great man hath fallen in Israel this 
day?" 



Address of Mr. Briggs, of New Hampshire. 

Mr. Speaker : Zachariah Chandler was born in the dis- 
trict I have the honor to represent. Among my constituents 
are the friends and associates of his early life. His birth- 
place, in the beautiful valley of the Merrimac, is only a short 
distance from my own home. There his boyhood was spent, 
and there he came forth to fame and fortune. His boyhood 
gave promise of the great character which his manhood ful- 
filled. From very humble beginnings, by his own energy and 
force of character, he worked his way to the front rank of the 
statesmen of his country. 

He adds another and most honorable name to the bright Ust 
of New Hampshire's illustrious sons. Proudly we bear the 
honor of his birth, and while his adopted State may be first, 
let New Hampshire be next at the memorial altar. 

The Granite State believes in men like Senator Chandler. 
We believe in a statesmanship of positive ideas. Not only do 
we honor his political principles, but for his very nature we 
loved the man — for his open, generous, philanthropic nature; 
always exercising his great aggressive vigor against the wrong, 
always taking the part of the weak and oppressed. 

An outline of his busy and eventful life has already been 
given by those who have preceded me, and I purpose only to 
ofl'er a few suggestions on the character of the man whom we 
have met this day to honor. Of his abilities there can be but 



LIFE AND CHARACTEE OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 133 



one oinnion. All the requisites of a great executive he cer- 
tainly possessed — decision, method, energy, self-reliance. He 
was not merely a great executive ; to his capacity as such was 
added that broader vision, that greater originality, in short, 
that statesmanship which belongs to great administrators. 
The executive need evolve only methods, the administrative 
measures. Tried by any theory, or measured by his own great 
success, Senator Chandler's abilities lifted him to the dignity 
of a great administrator. This might rest alone upon his busi- 
ness success ; it might rest upon his management of the Inte- 
rior Department for the brief period he was at its head ; it 
might rest upon his republican leadership of the last twenty 
years, a leadership that was more and more acknowledged 
until at his death it almost approached supremacy. This ca- 
pacity for administration was shown iu all these relations, and 
even in his legislative career it was this faculty which comes 
oftenest to the front. He possessed the qualities of a legis- 
lator of no mean or secondary order; he was invaluable in the 
committee, but he was not the less of consequence upon the 
floor of the Senate. 

Trace the history of this country through a long and most 
memorable period, and constantly as you may see his hand 
in its measures you as constantly hear his voice in its debates. 
He was bold and aggressive ; endowed by nature witli that 
clearness of logic, that directness, intensity, and vigor of state- 
ment that rendered him no "unknown quantity" in debate. 
Any attempted analysis of his character seems superfluous, 
his every quality is so well known to the world. He has been 
prominently before the nation for a quarter of a century — 
an era, measured by its great achievements, unparalleled in the 
annals of mankind; all the while closely identified with the 
legislation of his country and with the leadership of a great 



134 ADDRESS OF ME. BEIGGS ON THE 

party which has done more for human liberty than any other 
known to history. 

The one particular characteristic of the man was his 
strength. Other men were more finished. "We have many 
finished men, but few really strong ones. He was a man 
whose every thought was strength, and with whom to think 
was to do. Strength of conviction, strength of purpose, 
strength of methods, strength of statement — these were his 
in a supreme degree. History will never lose the impress of 
his character. 

He has been accused of a too zealous partisanship, but there 
is 110 warrant for this charge. True he was no " half-and-half"; 
there was no duplicity, no dissimulation in his composition. If 
he believed at all, it was with his whole great heart; and with 
his intensity of conviction he may have been wout to regard 
success as a duty ; but his enemies, if such he had, will not 
accuse him of unworthy and dishonorable means. 

His methods were bold, as they were vigorous. He struck 
hard, but he struck openly. Indeed his whole nature precluded 
suspicion. There were no dark or secret traits in his charac- 
ter. He did everything openly and above-board, and despised 
treachery, cant, and hypocrisy as only he had the scorn to de- 
spise them. With all his tremendous earnestness, he was yet a 
chivalrous and generous antagonist ; generous as he was in aU 
the relations of life. 

His character was of the kind to which generosity constitu- 
tionally belonged, for his faults were only those which belong 
to the warmest natures. 

Altogether he was one of those men who make history, and 
stamp their impress upon the age in which they live ; a man 
whose fame is stiU destined to increase like that of every true 
statesman whose work is grounded in conviction. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OP ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 135 

History will rauk bini among the most eminent of those 
whose names are inseparably associated with the cause of 
human rights. 

Time has already vindicated his prescient radicalism, and 
posterity will place him with the heralds who have gone be- 
fore their fellows to proclaim a better day. 

In the official career of Senator Chandler, from the begin- 
ning to the close of his public life, we have a realization of the 
poet's earnest prayer when he sang : 

God give us men; a time like this demands 

Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and r(;ady hands ; 

Men whom the lust of office does not kill ; 

Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy ; 

Men who have honor ; men who will not lie ; 

Men who can stand before a demagogue 

And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking; 

Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog 

In public duty and in private thinking. 



Address of Mr. Barber, of Illinois. 

Mr. Speaker : It did not occur to me that I should take part 
in these proceedings until the resolutions of the Senate were 
read in this Hall this afternoon. I rise now from a sense of 
duty. I should do injustice to my own feelings, and I am sure 
to the feelings of a very large number of the residents of the 
city I have the honor to represent in part on this floor, should 
I remain silent on this occasion. I come not, however, with 
any elaborate eulogy. My acquaintance with Senator Chan- 
dler was very brief. I saw him for the first time in March 
last, at the extra session. My contact with him was but slight. 
I cannot, therefore, speak of him either from long acquaint- 
ance or intimate relations. But it does so happen that the last 
great speech made by the Senator was delivered in the Con- 



136 ADDRESS OF MB. BARBER ON THE 

gressioiial district which I have the honor to represent. On 
the evening of the delivery of that speech I called upon him 
at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Chicago. I had a cordial greet- 
ing — a long and a' pleasant interview. As I recall his stalwart 
form, and bluff, hearty manner, I feel like exclaiming, 

Antl shall I soe his face again, 
And shall I hear him speak ? 

I went with him to the hall, I sat upon the platform, I saw 
him face as fine a pohtical audience as was ever assembled 
together, and I heard him deliver one of the grandest speeches 
ever uttered ujiou this continent. I shall not attempt to de- 
scribe the enthusiasm of that occasion. Mr. Chandler had 
never spoken in this great city before, and he had informed 
one of his most intimate friends who was with him that he re- 
garded it as the peculiar and crowning honor of his life that 
he had been invited to speak in the great commercial metrop- 
olis (jf the Northwest. He seemed to regard it as somewhat of 
a recognition of the position which he had at last reached in 
the estimation of this country. No man ever had a greater 
triumph. The great city of the lakes was never moved by an 
orator in that manner before. The echoes of that speech rung 
out through the Northwest like the clear, strong blast of a 
bugle. 

I saw the Senator retire from that platform amid the thun- 
ders of ai)plause and bearing on his brow the laurels he had 
won. He had given upon that occasion the most decisive evi- 
dence of oratorical power by the manner in which he moved 
and controlled that vast uudtitude assembled to hear him. 

But, sir, the scene changes. Ou the morrow I stand by his 
cold and lifeless form. 

The present moment is our ain, 
The niest we never saw. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OP ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. l.'!7 

Mr. Speaker, as one of the escort I went with the remains of 
the distinguished dead to the city of Detroit. Amid the hush 
of his awe-stricken friends we laid him down. Illinois to 
Michigan delivered up the illustrious dead. 

Mr. Speaker, among the patiiotic names of this country that 
of Senator Chandler is written high up, where it may be 
read by all the ages. You cannot erase it without tearing from 
the records one of the most important chapters in the history 
of humanity. Glory to his memory ! Peace to bis ashes ! 



Address of Mr. Garfield, of Ohio. 

Mr. Chairman: It cannot be too late, however late the 
hour, to pay our tribute of respect and afl'ection to the mem- 
ory of Zachariah Chandler. 

There is a thought in connection with his life and the his- 
tory of his State which has been referred to by the gentleman 
from New Jersey [Mr. Robeson], and which may be still fur- 
ther developed. It only lacks two years of being a full cen- 
tury since Lewis Cass was born, and he and Zachariah 
Chandler have filled seventy-three years of that period with 
active, prominent i^ublic service. And through all those sev- 
enty-three years there has shone like a star in both their lives 
the influence of one great event. 

In the stormy spring of 1861, when the foundations of the 
Eepublic trembled under the tread of assembling armies, I 
made a pilgrimage to the home of the venerable Lewis Cass, 
who had just laid down his great office as chief of the State 
Department, and for an hour I was a reverent listener to his 
words of wisdom. And in that conversation he gave me the 
thought which I wish to record. He said, " Tou remember. 



18 c 



138 ADDRESS OF ME. GARFIELD ON THE 

young man, that the Constitution did not take effect until nine 
States bad ratified it. My native State was the ninth. It 
huug a long time in doubtful scale whether nine would agree; 
but when at last New Hampshire ratified the Constitution, it 
was a day of great rejoicing. My mother held me, a little boy 
of six years, in her arms at a window and pointed me to a 
great man on horseback and to the bonfires that were blazing 
in the streets of Exeter, and told me that the horseman was 
General Washington and the people were celebrating the adop- 
tion of the Constitution." " So," said the aged statesman, " I 
saw the Constitution born, and I fear I may see it die. " 

He then traced briefly the singular story of his life. He 
said : " I crossed the Alleghany Mountains and settled in your 
State of Ohio one year before the beginning of this century. 
Fifty-four years ago now, I sat in the General Assembly of 
your State of Ohio. In 1807 I received from Thomas Jefferson 
a commission as United States marshal which I still preserve, 
and am probably the only man living today who bears a com- 
mission from Jefl'erson's hand." And so, running over the 
great retrospect of his life and saddened by bloody prospect 
that 1861 brought to his mind, said, " I have loved the Union 
ever since the light of that bonfire and the sight of General 
Washington greeted my eyes. I have given fifty-five years of 
my life and my best efforts to its preservation. I fear I am 
doomed to see it perish. " 

But a better fate awaited both him and the Union. Another 
son of New Hampshire took up the truncheon of j^ower from 
his failing hand, and, with the vigor of youth and liberty, 
maintained and defended the Union through the years of its 
supremest peril. Zachariah Chandler, whose birthplace 
was not more than thirty miles distant from that of Lewis 
Cass, resumed the duty as Michigan's Senator with the vigor 



LIFE AND CHARACTEK OP ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 139 

of youug aud hopeful manhood. Aud he pushed forward that 
great work uutil his last hour aud died in the full glory of its 
achievement. The State of New Hampshire may look upon 
this day and these names we celebrate as her pride and special 
glory. 

The great Garlyle has said that the best gift God ever gave 
to man was an eye that could really see; and that only a few 
men were recipients of this gift. I venture to add that an 
equally rare and not less important gift is the courage to tell 
just what one sees. Besides having an eye, Zachariah 
Chandler was endowed in an eminent degree with the cour- 
age to tell just what he saw. 

If from these seats, Mr. Speaker, every Representative 
should speak out the very inmost thought of the people he 
represents, this Hall would be luminous with the spirit aud 
aspirations of the American people. The ruling principle of 
Mr. Chandler's life was this: that what he saw in jjublic 
afifairs he uttered ; and having said it, stood by it — not with 
malice or arrogance, but with the sturdiness of thorough con- 
viction. To a stranger he might, perhaps, appear rugged and 
harsh — even to cruelty ; yet his heart was full of gentleness 
when he had satisfied his sense of duty. 

As a political force Mr. Chandler may be classed among 
the Cyclopean figures of history. The Norsemen would enroll 
him as one of the heroes in the halls of Valhalla. They would 
associate him with Thor and his thunder hammer. The Ro- 
mans would associate him with Vulcan aud the forges of the 
Cyclops who made the earth tremble under the weight of his 
strokes. 

What man have we known who, without specially cultivating 
the graces of oratory, was able to condense into ten minutes a 
more enduring speech than the one which he delivered at the 



ex<^ra session of 1879? Under the pressure of bis intense mind 
an liour of ordinary speech was condensed into a sentence. 

He was not an orator in the ordinary sense of fine writing 
and graceful delivery ; but in the clearness of his conceptions 
and the courage and force with which he uttered them he was 
a most remarkable speaker. 

Somebody said long ago that "one man with a belief was a 
greater power than ten thousand who have only interests." 
Mr. Chandler was emi>hatically a man with a belief. 

In the minds of most men the kingdom of opinion is divided 
into three territories — the territory of yes, the territory of no, 
and a broad, unexplored middle ground of doubt. That mid- 
dle ground in the mind of Mr. Chandler was very narrow. 
Nearly all his territory was occupied by positive convictions. 
On most questions his mind was made up more completely than 
that of any man I have known. 

His was an intense nature — 

DoTvered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 
The love of love. 

It is curious to observe that, as a general rule, long service 
in a legislative minority unfits men for the duties that devolve 
u[)on a majority. The business of the one is to attack, of the 
other to defend ; of the one to tear down, of the other to build up. 

The leaders of the anti-slavery struggle in this country were 
perhaps the most skillful in assault of any political party in 
our history. But when, after years of service in the minority, 
they came into power, but few of their i>rominent leaders were 
fit for the constructive work of maintaining an administration. 
Mr. Chandler was one of that small number who displayed 
in constructive legislation abilities fully equal to those which 
he exhibited as a member of the minority. His administration 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 141 

of the Interior Deijartment was au ample vindication of bis 
high qualities as au executive ofiQcer. 

This Congress will miss him in its councils. His party and 
his State will greatly miss him. I know he is sincerely mourned 
in my own State, where within three weeks of the hour of his 
death I had the honor to preside over the largest political 
assemblage I have seen in many years. The name of Zacha- 
RLAH Chandler called together that great multitude, who sat 
at his feet and listened \vith reverence and enthusiasm. 

Reviewing his life and summing up his qualities, we may 

fitly apply to him the words which the laureate of England 

applied to Wellington : 

O iron nerve, to true occasion true, 

O fallen at length, that tower of strength. 

Which stood foreaquare to all the winds that blew. 



Address of Mr. "Willits, of Michigan. 
Mr. Speaxer : Zachariah Chandler needs no eulogy to 
perpetuate his name in the State of Michigan; his nineteen 
years' service in the Senate of the United States is recorded in 
the annals of that distinguished body, and nothing that we 
can say to-day can add to or diminish his fame. His public 
like his private life was an active one and was well known 
and conspicuous from the first. March 4, 1857, he succeeded 
in the Senate of the United States a statesman long honored 
by the State of Michigan ; who had taken a leading part in its 
early history, having been its territorial governor from 1813 to 
1830; who had for four years been Secretary of War under An- 
drew Jackson, seven years minister to France under Jackson 
and Van Buren, the candidate of a great party for the office of 
Chief Executive of the nation, Senator of the United States, 
and finally Secretary of State under James Buchanan. It was 



142 ADDEESS OF JIE. WILLITS ON THE 

such a man as this Zachariah Ghaudler succeeded; a man 
who had gathered to himself the honors of two continents, con- 
ferred dignity upon every position he had occupied, and for 
half a century had added leaf after leaf to the well- filled chaplet 
that had fallen so fittingly upon his brow. Lewis Cass was an 
honored name in the State of Michigan ; it was a household 
word in the homes of the hardy ijioueers who had followed 
him into the new State he had helped to found. Their chil- 
dren in like manner revered the maa who had extinguished the 
Indian title to the lands they now occupied and had made a 
name historic in the annals of his country. 

It was no whim that relegated Lewis Cass to private Ufe. It 
was no accident that brought Zachariah Chandler to the 
front instead. The people of the Peninsular State are not vol- 
atile or visionary, or forgetful of those who have shown them- 
selves worthy of honor. There is none of the feeling exhibited 
by the Athenian clown, as related by Plutarch, who was tired 
of hearing Aristides everywhere called the Just. The State of 
Michigan was in no just sense unmindful of the great worth of 
Lewis Cass, and would have delighted to continue him in the 
high position he had so justly attained, if events had not con- 
spii-ed to render it impossible. With these events he had failed 
to keep himself fully abreast. There are times when public 
sentiment will not endure a political laggard. Lewis Cass, with 
all his breadth of intellect, with the experience of a statesman 
and the amenities of the finished scholar and gentleman, was 
not a ijositive man, was not an original man. Times were on 
the threshold when both of these qualities were to be needed. 
He was a true man at heart, loyal to his country, and so honest 
that, when at last he saw the fallacy of his position, he resigned 
his high place rather than compromise his fealty to the Union. 
But he was too old to fight, and he was unable to devise a plan 



LIFE ANB CHAKACTER OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 143 



to Still the waves of the rising revolution. He had to give way 
to a sentiment he had been slow to perceive and utterly unable 
to comprehend. 

Among those who had been quick to perceive the logic of 
events was the man whom we honor to-day. He was selected 
by the people of the State of Michigan to succeed Lewis Cass; 
not because he had had large experience in political aflairs, for 
he had had none ; not because he had culture and refinement, 
for he had neither, as understood in the school or the drawing- 
room ; not because he was learned in the law or skilled in the 
arts of diplomacy, for he was wont to boast that he cared for 
neither the abstruseness of the one nor the duplicity of .the 
other; but he was selected because he was a strong, positive 
man who was in full sympathy with the revolt against the 
political tendencies of the party in power, and with which 
Lewis Cass had been identified for half a century; he was 
selected because he was a hearty hater of sham, an opponent 
of the compromises that had insidiously taken more than they 
had purported to give, and demanded more than the people of 
his State were disposed to yield ; because, in the " irrepress- 
ible conflict" then impending, he was on the side of the lib- 
erty which the fathers had aspired to, but from which the sons 
had apostatized. In all these characteristics he was the repre- 
sentative of his people, who had the utmost confidence in his 
integrity, strong common sense, and positive adherence to the 
convictions born of this common sense. 

From the advent of Zachariah Chandler in the Senate 
of the United States to the end of his career, so unexpectedly 
terminated, he justified the confidence reposed in him. In the 
terrible conflict that convulsed the land he was an important 
factor, moving and controlling events and policies by the tre- 
mendous force of his wiU and the dictation of a restless en- 



144 ADDRESS OF JIR. WILLITS ON Tmi 



ergy. Untrammeled by the subtleties of the diaiectician, he 
held ill supreme contempt the falteriug hesitation of generals 
aud the doubting quibbles of lawyers in the face of an armed 
enemy. To him war had its own laws, construed by the su- 
preme necessity of the horn- and enforced by the musket ; the 
road to essential justice was in a straight line, with no devious 
paths leading into an ambush. Emancipation of the negro 
race, prompt, decisive, by proclamation, presented to him no 
legal difficulties. He would utilize the force which might be 
let loose upon rebellion, and would for aU time take from the 
master the slave for whose thraldom he had riseu iu arms 
against the Union; retributive justice should supplement un- 
warranted revolution. 

He was restless over the delay of the proclamation, and 
when the preliminary one had been issued in September, 1862, 
he had none of the fears and doubts of the conservatives who 
l^rotested against it as unconstitutional aud sought to have it 
recalled. Iu the intervening months he visited Washington, 
before the final proclamation was issued, to counteract, by his 
presence and his positive \'iews, the effort to have the step 
abandoned. On his return I met him at the depot, at my own 
home, and was informed exultingly: "Lincoln will stick." In 
all these years he seemed to comprehend by inspiration what 
some men never learned at all or acquired only by experience. 
He was not swept along by the tide; he was a component part 
of the tide itself— one of the forces of the times, one of the 
men wlio make history. Nevertheless, he was not much given 
to speech-making or formulating statutes. The records of Con- 
gress do not show for him as much, measured by the square 
foot, as for the long line of disputative spouters who have 
gone to the same graves as the speeches they made. He 
would never have devised the electoral commission ; he could 



LIFE AND CHAKACTER OF ZACIIARIAII ("IIANDLlCi;. 145 

not have doue so if he woiikl ; but he supplemented it with 
organized facts without which its findings would have had 
altogether another termination. 

lie was a practical iiiau not given to theories; not like 
Archimedes, who from princii)Ies elaborated in his study con- 
structed his pulleys and engines, the one of which demolished 
the Koman fleet and played pitcli and toss with the Kouiau 
ships, but ratlier like Marcellus, who in his jiractical way 
captured the unguarded tower which overlooked doomed 
Syracuse. He was a man of aftaiis. By his own exertions 
he made an independent fortune, of which he ne\'er st(jle a 
cent. No man ever charged him witli larceny, or liyjjocrisy, 
or lukewarmness to a friend, or placability to a foe, or cow- 
ardly desertion of a ecmviction, or compromise of a i)rinciple. 
He was a gererous fighter, who never fired a musket with hos- 
tile intent, and yet worthily earned the title of Michigan's 
great war Senator. Over this title no worthy soldier on the 
shores of th • great lakes of the Northwest has ever been cap- 
tious or envious. He was the soldiers' friend, and he divided 
with them the high esteem in which they held all the moving 
spirits in the great contest in which loyal men shed so much 
of their loyal blood. None have mourned his untimely death 
moi'e than the heroes of that war, and when the news of his 
death was sent to the ends of the globe on the morning of the 
1st day of November last, none bowed with a heartier sorrow 
over the memory of the man they revered than the men who 
had so faithfully in the field vindicated the policy ad\ocated 
by the illustrious Senator in the councils of th(^ nation. 

When the sad news reached uu^, 1 was on my journey home 
from Chicago. I had parted with him the midnight before. 1 
was the last mau that saw Senator Ciiandlek alive. 1 now 
and shall to my latest hour recall the room in the Grand 



11) c 



14G ADDRESS OF ME. WILLITS. 

Pacific Hotel in which we liad this last interview. The fire 
was buruiug low; the hotel was as sileut as the grave iu 
which he now lies; we were as much alone as if we sat by a 
solitary camp-fire in the pathless desert. After about twenty 
minutes' conversation I left him alone with Death stealing 
over the threshold of his room. I did not see him there, 
but is it my imagination that recalls footfalls as 1 passed 
along the silent, diudy-lighted corridors to my own room! 
As the recollection comes to nie, it seems as though these 
echoes may have been the footfalls of the grim destroyer who 
so closely follows the steps of mortal man. I recollect now 
that there was a sense of something unsaid — what it was I 
cannot recall — that led me to stop and turn back as if to raj) 
at his door and speak to him again, but knowing he was 
weary I refrained, and went my lonely way. I can hardly 
wish now that I had followed the impulse, for it is unlikely 
that my presence would have changed the purpose of that 
Providence that holds the issues of life and had then marked 
him for death; but who knows what parting word might have 
been said ? AVho knows but the impulse I had may have been 
only a response to one he himself had, and which had spoken 
to me as spirit talketh to spirit, calling for .some word of sym- 
pathy, some kind remembrance? But he is gone, and I shall 
never know whether he called or not till we again meet face to 
face. Till then I can only join with the multitude of mourners 
iu lamenting the great loss we all sustained in the loss of a 
great nuui, and iu lading this last token upon his grave. 

I move the adoption of the resolutions. 

The qnestiou being taken on the resolutions, they were 
adopted unanimously, and in obedience to the second resolu- 
tion the House (at six o'clock and twelve minutes p. m.) 

adjourned. 

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